


Legacy

by MsLazykat



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Minor Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24790198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsLazykat/pseuds/MsLazykat
Summary: Following a successful assassination attempt, Izumi must grapple with the death of Fire Lord Zuko as the Fire Nation scrambles for a new Fire Lord, in the process, revealing a powerful secret about her lineage and the future of the Fire Nation throne.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 117





	1. I.

The attempts on his life had been few and far between for years. Zuko wasn’t exactly an old man, but he wasn’t the virile sixteen-year old he was when he took the throne. When assassination attempts did come, they were dealt with quickly and quietly. His assailants usually tried to take his life with physical attacks; be it attempted stabbings in public or sneaking into his chambers when he wasn’t in his heavily surveilled palace. No one guessed that the attempt that would succeed would come from an underling who had worked his way into the Fire Lord’s palace. He didn’t come in the night to poison his drink or slice his neck during a meeting. He killed the Fire Lord in broad daylight, in the palace garden where he would pass the time that wasn’t already committed to several meetings. He broke bread with the man, poured his tea, and killed him. Zuko didn’t die straight away. The poison worked its way through his lungs over the course of several days. At first, it took him longer than usual to get to his room and when he arrived, he was out of breath. In the following days, he developed a wheeze, then a cough. Waving it off as a common illness, he didn’t seek a doctor until his coughs produced blood.

By that time, they were able to identify the effects as those of poison, but it was too late for it to be cured. The advice given was to get his house in order and find the assassin. The assassin was found with little difficulty. The last person to see the Fire Lord before his symptoms set in was Kenji, a favored scribe. He wanted to be found, to look in to Fire Lord Zuko’s eyes as the life faded from them, swearing that with his death, the Fire Nation would return to the glory it had under Ozai. Instead of this, Kenji was escorted to the Boiling Rock, never getting to face Zuko as he desired. Not out of an explicit urge to usurp the desires of the assassin, but because the Fire Lord was too ill to leave his bedside.

His final weeks were spent assuring the public that he was fine, that the illness was nothing to worry about. The Fire Lord spent that time making tours of the four nations, first stopping in the Earth Kingdom to visit his old friend Toph Beifong and King Kuei in his old age. He then toured the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, discussing with his friends Sokka, Suki, and Katara while there. It took him some time, but he was eventually he was able to track down Aang at his home, the Southern Air Temple, where he was rebuilding with the Air Acolytes. At each interval, he confided in his visitors that he was gravely ill and that the rebuilding of the nations would have to continue without him. He was eerily calm about the subject of his impending demise while his friends and allies were in hysterics. “How could you be so calm?” they asked him. He replied that since assassinations were so often plotted against him, he had made peace with death a long time ago.

The illness advanced severely during his tour of the world. The Water Tribe healers were able to buy him a few more weeks of health, but after he returned to the Fire Nation, he became bedridden. In his final days, his friends visited him one by one. Each stayed in the palace chambers until the Fire Lord’s final breath.

The Four Nations each had their own way of mourning Fire Lord Zuko. The Earth King held a nation-wide festival in his honor; a celebration of the new era of peace that lasted several days. The Water Tribes held funeral processions, throwing an assortment of Fire Nation robes into the sea in lieu of a body and having feasts of traditional funerary dishes. Aang and the Air Acolytes returned to the Western Air Temple and held a funeral there. He led the group in reciting the Heart Sutra and feeding dry bread to vultures in lieu of a body. The funeral rites held in the Fire Nation were quiet and personal, as per Zuko’s wishes. The cremation was held a week after Zuko’s death. He was buried in the family plot with the name “peace-maker” ascribed to his tombstone. In public mourning, the Fire Nation was split, with some wearing white in respect and others burning effigies of the old Fire Lord and giving his body names that were less than respectful.

Those living in the Palace City wore white after the funeral, with Azula and her ward Izumi wearing the funeral color the longest.

The days leading up to Zuko’s death were hard on Izumi. She had been close to him all her life and considered him as her uncle. Watching him struggle to breathe while poison overtook his lungs was too much to bear. Still, she made sure to visit, even if it was just to offer him water. Azula had been her comfort through her uncle’s death. Every visit had her in tears afterward. She was there to dry Izumi’s eyes and to calm her down.

Through her tears, Izumi spoke, “How could you be so calm through all this?” She clung to her godmother’s arms as she shook violently with every inhale.

Azula ran a hand through Izumi’s hair and spoke calmly. “It’s better to have someone pass into the next life than have him stay here and suffer.” When those words didn’t soothe, she tried again. “I’ve done my share of reckoning. Now you must cry for the both of us.”

Izumi held onto her robes tighter and sobbed harder.

When the tears ran dry and the ashes were interned in the earth, Izumi stayed inside the palace grounds, rarely leaving her room. She slept all day; only in her dreams was she able to see her uncle. When she wasn’t sleeping, she was avoidant, purposefully escaping her godmother’s care and staying out of visitors’ way. The only person she couldn’t avoid was her husband, Jiro, not just because he shared the same room as her, but also because he actively sought her out. She could never hide from him. It was a comfort as well as a burden. When she finally left her room for good and stayed outside long enough for the sun to warm her skin, she was ravenous, suddenly filled with the urge to experience as much as she could.

In those days, she was more active than she’d been since her uncle had fallen ill. The palace believed she was recovering, healing. She no longer wore white. Her appetite had returned tenfold, to her own relief. But as quickly as appetite returned, it was gone. Izumi became sick after every meal, hardly able to hold down dinner. She was infuriated with herself, so frustrated that she began to cry. Just as things were becoming good, they were falling apart again. She confided these feelings to Jiro, who comforted her, saying, “We’ll call a doctor for you in the morning.”

The next day, a doctor came. He saw her in the palace drawing room. She reclined on a chaise longue as he took her wrist into his hand, squeezing his thumb and forefinger around her pulse. His mouth moved without sound as he counted the seconds. Jiro stood behind Izumi, holding her other hand for moral support.

When the doctor finished counting, he released Izumi’s hand and asked her to sit upright, which she did. He placed a cone-like instrument at her back and pressed his ear to it, listening. “How long have you had these symptoms, Lady Izumi?” He asked her to take deep breaths.

Izumi spoke in between breaths. “I believe it’s been a week of sickness after I started to recover from the death of my uncle.”

The doctor mumbled “I see” as he leaned back on his stool. He asked Izumi to lay back down. “Have you had trouble with your digestion before?”

Izumi blushed. “Well, not really. Just recently.”

The doctor marked a pad of paper with a few quick strokes of his brush. “Your last menstruation?”

Izumi squeaked, squeezing her husband’s hand. The weeks had been blurring together. She didn’t notice that her menses had been more than just “late.” She knew where this conversation was headed. “I’m not too sure… It’s been a while.”

The doctor hummed, considering her words. “I believe you’re pregnant,” he said. “The grief from the Fire Lord’s passing is affecting you greatly, but I urge you to find solace and stability for your child’s sake.”

She could have fainted then and there. A baby? She looked to Jiro, who stood above her. He looked down at her with wide, happy eyes. He wasn’t smiling, but she know he was overjoyed. Izumi sighed, resigned. “How many months along am I?”

The doctor scratched the scruff on his chin. “About three.”

“It’s a marvel how fate works,” Jiro said. “One person leaves this earth and other comes along.” Izumi stared at the large lacquered doors of the drawing room. She could feel the excitement in his voice.

The doctor packed his tools into his leather bag. “That’s how nature maintains balance,” he replied nonchalantly, not looking up.

Later, as Izumi reclined on the chaise in her own room, she would notice how this balance was like the Avatar cycle, how her family is close friends with Avatar Aang, how her godmother’s grandfather was the last Avatar, and how no one ever really dies. Not even her uncle. But for now, she gives her husband a weary smile from the chaise in the drawing room as the doctor writes a list of prenatal teas and medications, thinking nothing of the exchange.


	2. II.

The days immediately following news of the Fire Lord’s illness were rife with civil unrest. Zuko had died a bachelor and Azula had no children of her own. Who would take the throne? The subject was hotly debated at dinner tables around the Fire Nation.

During his lifetime, Fire Lord Zuko reduced the role of Fire Nation royalty significantly. He believed that if Sozin didn’t have unilateral control of the Fire Nation’s military, the Hundred Year War would have never happened. He started with the division of the Fire Nation into providences with their own elected council and representative. The legislation of the Fire Nation was broken into three ministries: education, trade, and peace. The Ministry of Peace, along with the Fire Sages, oversaw the Fire Nation military. The role of Fire Nation royalty was relegated to the cultural and historical preservation of the Fire Nation, and to serve as ambassador to the Four Nations.

With the political power of the Fire Lord being all but completely obliterated, many believed that the death of Fire Lord Zuko would mean that the throne would die with him. Izumi had always thought differently. When he was alive, Zuko would speak about the aftereffects of the war and genocide as a responsibility the Fire Nation, specifically the royal family, would have to atone for the next hundred years.

“Or even one hundred times one hundred,” he would say. “The mindset that all Fire Nation have, that we are somehow better, will take eternity to fully cleanse from our minds.” He explained this to her when she was eleven, just starting her courses on the Hundred Year War. He spoke with such certainty, that the bloodline of the royal family would continue on through the hundred years it would take to rebuild. She never thought much of it then, but now she realized it was a strange assertion since he died a bachelor.

Her godmother never took a husband. Izumi never knew her to be particularly romantic. Even so, marriage can exist without romance. But without a marriage or legal heirs, the royal bloodline would end with her, too.

Izumi pondered these things as she sat on a bench in the palace gardens. She tore off a piece of bread to toss to the turtle-ducks, continuing her uncle’s old pastime.

“Bread is bad for them, you know.”

Izumi turned to see Azula walking to the bench, the robes that dragged behind her made her appear to be gliding. She smiled. “Godmother!”

Azula sat next to her on the stone bench. She held out her palm and Izumi passed her the bread loaf. She began to tear off a piece. “Bread gives no nutrients to turtle-ducks.” She chuckled softly. “I used to hit them with it instead. It’s better we eat it, so it doesn’t go to waste.” She popped the piece in her mouth.

Izumi snickered and held out her open palm. Azula gave her the bead and she took a piece, too. “Then why do people feed them bread?”

Azula sighed. “I don’t know. Something poetic?” She looked down at her hands. “Bread is a common food, a symbol of alms. Feeding animals is a form of almsgiving.”

“Hm.” Izumi chewed her bread and nodded, lost in thought.

A long moment of silence passed between them. The wind rustled the branches overhead. The turtle-ducks moved to the pond after it became evident that they wouldn’t be receiving any more food. The two watched them go, Azula passively hurrying them along with her shoe.

“I heard you’re awaiting happiness,” Azula said, breaking the silence. She drew circles in the grass with her foot. She looked up, into her goddaughter’s eyes. “May the spirits guide you through this time,” she said gently.

Izumi softened. “Thank you, godmother.” Her posture sunk. “If I may be honest, this child is coming at an inconvenient time. It feels like one thing after another.” She sighed and twiddled her thumbs, looking out into the pond. The wind blew and the tree branches rustled, dropping cherry blossoms into their laps.

Azula said nothing, studying her goddaughter’s face with sympathy. After a moment’s pause, she stood. “Come with me.”

Izumi followed her godmother into the palace. They crossed corridors and walked down hallways until they reached a large, lacquered door with dragons carved onto its surface. Izumi ran a hand along the carvings. “Uncle’s office…” Her hand lingered on the dragon’s head as she admired its craftmanship. She hadn’t been inside for years and even so, she never had the chance to admire the door this closely.

Azula revealed a golden key from behind her long silk sleeve. “Remember when you used to come here to play?” She turned the key in its lock. A loud unlatching noise followed suit. She stepped back and pulled the heavy doors, revealing the room behind them.

Izumi stepped into the grand office, awestruck. “Yes…” It was more than she remembered. Ornate gold and red silk tapestries flanked the wooden walls. Below the tapestries were tall, dark bookshelves filled with bound books, scrolls, and loose papers alike. Large flames were embroidered into the long rug that led to the lacquered cherry desk and chair that sat on a platform, elevated from the rest of the floor. The ceiling had a relief of two dragons circling each other with flames surrounding them. The old masters, no doubt. “I’d come when Uncle had been shut in all day and I missed him.”

Azula smiled as she watched her goddaughter take in the sight, following her into the elegant room. She spoke softly, “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Izumi looked down, away from the relief sculpture and onto the floor, squeezing her eyes shut. “Last time I was here, he was still alive.”

Azula placed a hand on Izumi’s shoulder. “You can look; it’s okay.”

When Izumi felt her godmother’s hand leave her shoulder, she turned around. Azula was walking to one of the shelves. Izumi looked to the desk. She had always wanted to sit in her uncle’s chair. She approached the platform slowly, stepping onto it and rounding the desk. As she circled both the desk and chair, she remembered the times she’d run into the office to find Zuko writing or reading. Sometimes, he was having a meeting with another official. He was always busy. Always. Izumi stopped behind the chair. But he always made time for her.

“Big shoes to fill?” Azula’s voice drew Izumi from her thoughts. She was holding a stack of loose papers held together by a leather hide.

Izumi ran a hand over the chair’s flame carvings. “They’ll never be mine to fill,” she said with a sad smile.

Her godmother gestured to the chair. “Why don’t you sit down?” When Izumi did, Azula approached her with the stack of papers. She laid it down on the desk. “Your uncle wanted you to have these.”

Izumi stared at the papers placed before her. The hide was a tawny color and tanned. When she ran a hand over it, it had a soft texture. Suede. The material wasn’t common in the Fire Nation at all; it must have been imported from the Water Tribes. But what would her uncle be doing with such material? Especially when it’s use was something so mundane?

She tugged at the cloth that kept the hide tied together; it unraveled easily. Pushing aside the hide, she moved the stack of papers closer. She flipped through the papers first without reading them. They still smelled like him. Izumi smiled. She pulled the first letter out of the stack. It was a thick, heavy paper; probably made of manilla. She read the letter aloud,

“My Izumi…I’ve started this letter more times than you will ever know. The first time I began this letter, you were just two years old, being rocked to sleep by your mother. Things were much simpler then. But I assume that’s everyone says when they’re looking back on the past. The second time I started this letter was when you began your firebending training when you were seven. Your skill, your natural gift, it humbled me. I immediately had to write down my thoughts, but the time wasn’t right still. But now, on your sixteenth birthday, I have decided to delay this no longer.”

This letter must have been written ages ago. Izumi was now twenty-eight, no longer the teenager her uncle was writing about. She looked up to see that her godmother had moved to a lounge chair adjacent from the desk.

Azula sat, eating cherries. “The sixteenth year is considered to be the most important in a person’s life. It’s the year one is initiated into adult society.” She popped a cherry into her mouth. “Very important.”

Izumi rolled her eyes before continuing. “I have watched you grow from afar while you stayed in my very home. Even a door away is too far when you can’t claim your own in public…” Izumi’s voice trailed off. Was this letter saying what she thought it was? Her eyes hastily scanned the rest of the document. They were trained on the words “my daughter.” She stared at those words for a full minute but could barely register the meaning. Her eyes stung with tears. Her breathing was rapid and shallow as she read the line over and over. My daughter. My daughter. My _daughter_. _My_ daughter. _My daughter_.

Her mind immediately went to when she was fourteen with her uncle in the palace library. The days they would spend together, reading scrolls as he told stories of the Fire Nation before the war, a history that was almost forgotten. Those days gained new meaning as Izumi reread the line over and over. There was always the assumption that the responsibility of the Fire Nation would be passed to her somehow when her uncle spoke to her of history and culture. Now she knew why.

The truth shocked her into silence. She sat at her uncle’s desk, contemplating. The tears welling in her eyes finally slid down the smooth, pale skin of her face. She chuckled softly. All those days of firebending training. All the vacations. He was always like a father to her because he was just that. She took in a sharp, shaky breath.

By then, her godmother had returned to her side at the desk. She placed a hand on Izumi’s shoulder and spoke softly. “You _do_ know why he had to keep your relation a secret?”

Izumi wiped her tears with her freehand. She shook her head, not taking her eyes away from the letter. “I was illegitimate?”

Azula furrowed her brow and smiled sympathetically. “No, darling.” She stooped to Izumi’s shoulder and pointed to a specific passage in the letter. “Read on.”

As Izumi read on, her jaw slackened. “I’m half Water Tribe…?” She stared at the page a few moments longer, reading and rereading the passage. Not illegitimate, just…not completely Fire Nation. She looked to her godmother with confusion. “Why would this mean I had to stay a secret?”

Azula took a deep breath in. “Think about it, dear.” She pulled up a stool that lay nearby and sat down. “The majority of the Fire Nation had been fed propaganda for years. They were already upset that the war ended with the Fire Nation ceding everything we annexed. Your father had most of his assassination attempts happen in those first years of peace.”

This was a fact Izumi knew, but the novelty of the words “your father” in relation to Fire Lord Zuko sent a strange chill up her spine. Almost as if she were embarrassed.

“He feared that publicly taking a Water Tribe wife would cause more unrest or even secession,” Azula continued.

Izumi furrowed her brow. “How can a marriage do that? Marriage isn’t a political matter. It’s a private one!”

“Izumi, you’ve read enough historical texts to know that marriage has always been used for political gain,” her godmother admonished. “It’s one thing to have an ambassador to from the Water Tribe in the palace, but a completely different thing to have the palace marry _into_ the Water Tribe!”

Izumi’s eye’s stung anew. Her breathing was shaky. Her better judgement willed her to understand, but her heart felt it was just an excuse. “I know!” she bit out through gritted teeth.

Azula sighed, placing a hand on her niece’s lap. “This is a lot to process, darling, I know.” She searched for the right words, choosing them carefully. “…I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but it is. I’ll leave you with your father’s letters, but know that if you want to know more, I’m always willing to talk.”

Izumi looked away from her godmother, balling her fists in her lap as her breathing hastened and tears fell more readily. After staying a few moments with no response, Azula stood. She looked sympathetically at her niece but said nothing as she left the room.


	3. III.

Jiro heated two small tea pots as a kettle simmered over the fire. He poured hot water into both pots, turning them to allow the water to properly heat the porcelain before throwing it out. Into one pot, he scooped Keemun tea leaves, into the other, Izumi’s pregnancy tea blend. He then poured the boiling water into each pot and placed both on a serving dish along with two teacups.

Jiro and Izumi usually spent their weekend afternoons together in their chamber. The sun was high on the terrace and light poured in through the open balcony doors. Izumi sat at the low table, playing a game of solitaire. Her mouth was set with a stiff upper lip, her eyes were trained on the cards. She drew from the deck, sucked her teeth when she saw the card, and placed it with a flank of cards on her right. Izumi loved to play solitaire and Jiro loved watching her. It was like her mind went on autopilot whenever she played. Like her hands moved of their own accord while she thought, working out problems as she solved her game. He admired her concentration. She could enter their room with a question and after a few rounds of solitaire, have the answer.

This time was different, though. Every play was accompanied by a frustrated sigh, even if it was a winning move. Her lip curled into a snarl as she reshuffled the deck. The problem must be unsolvable.

Jiro placed their tea on the table and sat across from her. He set one cup in front of Izumi and the other in front of himself. When she didn’t look up, he spoke. “You want to talk about it?”

Izumi’s eyes stayed on the cards. “…I’m not sure.” She laid out a new game and set the deck to her left. She drew a card, clicked her tongue, and set it on the furthest flank.

Jiro poured the Keemun tea into his own cup and poured Izumi’s pregnancy blend into hers. He held the cup to his nose, breathing in its fruity aroma before taking a leisurely sip. He watched her play, waiting until she was ready to talk. But Izumi didn’t draw another card. She just sat there, staring at the game she had laid out. Before he could ask what was wrong, she spoke.

“I know who my father is,” she said, looking into her husband’s eyes.

Jiro was stunned. The two rarely broached the subject of her parentage anymore. Izumi had long since stopped wanting to know about her birth mother after she accepted Azula as a mother. Even more rare was the mention of a _father_. “Who?”

She drew a card, glanced at it, and placed it under the deck. “Zuko.”

Jiro’s eye’s widened. He watched his wife rise from her seat and walk to their chest at the opposite end of the room. She fished out a wrapped stack of papers from the top drawer before closing it. Coming back to the table, she cleared her game and set the papers down in front of him. She began to unwrap them.

“Godmother gave this to me yesterday.” She laid open the flaps of the hide and picked the first paper from the stack, handing it to him. “They’re letters Zuko wrote me while he was alive.”

Jiro took the letter. Reaching for his reading glasses that lay in a pocket in his robe, he perched them atop the bridge of his nose and began reading.

“I’ve only read that letter. I’ve just been looking at it over and over again.” She looked away from him, diverting her gaze to the floor. “I don’t know what to think. Or what to feel.”

Jiro’s eyes stayed trained on the letter. “What do you feel now?”

Izumi took a deep breath in and released it, deflated. “Confused. Angry. How could he keep this from me all my life? How could Godmother?”

Jiro returned the letter to the stack. He looked into his wife’s eyes, taking her hands in his. “I’m sure he had a good reason. I’m sure Godmother did, too. That _is_ his sister, after all.”

Izumi sighed. She moved around the table, sat next to Jiro, and lay her head in his lap. “I’m not even fully Fire Nation. It’s like I’m a lie.”

Jiro ran a hand through her hair, loosening her top knot. “You’re talking as if you just found out you’ll be on the streets. This is good news. You were always close to Zuko. There isn’t anyone else you’d rather your father be.”

Izumi sighed again. “I know. But it’s weird, especially to find out after he died. It’s like he was…ashamed of me.”

Jiro combed her hair with his fingers, swooping it to one side of her face. “I’m sure you’re overthinking it. There’s a reason he left you so many letters. He had a lot to say to you that he couldn’t as a leader.”

She took in a lengthy breath, curling into her husband’s lap. “I loved him so much… Imagine how much closer we would have been if I knew…”

“You think he didn’t feel the same way?” Jiro asked softly.

Izumi tugged at her silken robes, balling the fabric into her fist. “I know he did.” Her eyes felt heavy. She had been feeling so much these past few days that fatigue followed any small stressor. In the warmth of the afternoon sun, comfortable in her husband’s lap, she could sleep right there.

“What of your mother?”

“My…mother?” Izumi repeated. The question almost didn’t register. Her godmother was somewhere in the palace doing Agni-knows-what. Izumi had been avoiding her like she’d been avoiding the letters. She flopped onto her back, quiet for a second before realizing what Jiro meant. “Oh! The letter didn’t say. I’m sure she’s mentioned in the others.”

Jiro noticed the aloof calm in his wife’s voice. “You’re not worried about who your mother might be?”

Izumi toyed with fabric of Jiro’s robe. “I…I already have Godmother. I don’t know if I want another mom.” The words were flighty and clumsy on her tongue. She knew she didn’t mean it. “I’ve never had a father, but I’ve always had a mother,” she added almost in defense of what she had just said.

“You’ve always had both,” Jiro corrected.

Izumi smiled. “You’re right.”

He picked the full teacup from its place on the table, holding it over Izumi. “Your tea’s getting cold.”

She sat up, taking the cup from her husband’s hands. “Thank you.” She moved closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She drank from the cup. The tea was spicy and slightly bitter. She cringed at the taste, but downed it, nonetheless.

Jiro reached for the stack of letters, moving it closer to them. He removed the letter he had just read and picked up the one beneath it. “Why don’t we read these together?”

Izumi closed her eyes. “I’d like that.”

Jiro adjusted his glasses, scanning the letter. “This one looks like it’s from your mother.”

Izumi gasped, choking on her tea. She turned her head and coughed roughly, setting her cup on the floor. She slapped a hand to her chest and tried to breathe. Jiro struck her back firmly, helping her cough the drink out of her lungs.

“Sorry,” he said.

“No, it’s fine,” Izumi managed after coughing. Her throat still burned. She looked to the letter. “What does it say?”

Jiro studied his wife, searching her face for discomfort. She was still holding onto her chest and wincing, but she gestured for him to continue. He looked to the page.

“My Precious Jewel… If you are reading this letter, your father has passed away. Whether I am in the next life with him or still on Earth with you, I’m not sure. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I’m sorry we were never able to live together as a family. Your father and I had our duties to our nations and could never be in one place for too long. We knew the world wasn’t ready for our family, wasn’t ready for you. It was painful to let you go. Don’t, for a second, believe that I wouldn’t have raised you myself if I could have. You were, and still are, my heart, half of me, and I couldn’t love you more…”

Izumi’s eyes stung before tears ran freely down her cheeks. She looked at the floor and tugged at her robes aggressively. Her lower lip trembled. The letter was so sentimental, she couldn’t stand it. How could her mother love her so much? What if she _was_ gone, just like her father? She hid her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook as her tears became sobs.

Jiro put the letter down and wrapped his arms around his wife. “There, there,” he cooed, running his hands down her back and rocking her.

“What if she’s gone, Jiro?” Izumi buried her face in his chest. “What if I’ll never get to meet her, speak to her?”

Jiro rested his chin on her head. “She isn’t gone,” he said softly.

Izumi moved her head from his chest and looked up at him. “What?”

He looked down at her. “Your mother is still plenty alive.”

Izumi stared at her husband intensely. The question was in her eyes. _Who is she?_

“Katara of the Water Tribe.”

* * *

 _Katara of the Water Tribe_. Izumi lay awake in her bed while her husband slept. The thought had plagued her all day. She had thought about this revelation while she fed the turtle-ducks, revised her academic journal, ate her dinner. She even thought about it while bathing. Incidentally, avoiding her godmother all day meant that Izumi couldn’t find her when she actually wanted to talk to her. So, she was awake, thinking about her parents.

She turned onto her side. Her aunt Katara was one of her closest relatives. Katara visited for each and every one of her birthdays. She attended every summer solstice festival Izumi could remember. She visited Katara every winter solstice with Godmother and Zuko. Izumi bit her fingernail. It turned out that her “mother” was her aunt and the one she called “aunt” was her mother. She tossed onto her back. That also meant that her aunt and uncle were a couple. Were they married? Were they common law husband and wife? Did they have her on accident?

Izumi’s earliest memory of her Aunt Katara and Uncle Zuko together was when she was four years old.

It was the dry season in the Fire Nation: sweltering heat and no rains for relief. As much as most people hated the dry season, it was Izumi’s favorite time of the year. No rain but none of the oppressive humidity that precedes it. The only thing she truly hated about the dry season was the sun, beaming down constantly and unencumbered. Evening was the most hospitable time of day. It was in the evening that she found her aunt resting her head on her uncle’s lap. He fanned white splotches on side of her neck that was exposed to the evening air. Katara sighed in relief as Zuko spoke to her in low tones. Izumi watched them from the hallway of the office they were seated in.

Katara saw Izumi from her spot on the chaise. “Come in, sweetie,” she beckoned.

Izumi approached the couple. She stopped in front of her aunt, standing at eye level. Katara ran a hand through her hair. “Auntie, what’s wrong?”

“I just got bitten by some mosquito-bees. That’s all,” she said gently.

“A lot of mosquito-bees,” her uncle interjected.

Katara playfully hit his leg. They both laughed. She looked back to Izumi, her gaze softening. “I’ll be alright.”

Izumi remembered them always being like that; tied up in each other’s arms. Another time, when she was visiting the Southern Water Tribe for the winter solstice, she found her aunt and uncle together in their igloo. Her aunt was asleep in her uncle’s lap, hair loose and elegantly strewn over his thigh. Her uncle was reading a book when he noticed Izumi lingering in the doorway. He motioned for her to sit on his other thigh, her toes in her aunt’s long hair, as he read her a few pages from his novel. Katara and Zuko. Aunt and uncle. Mother and father.

Izumi was astonished. Partly because her parentage was what it was, but mostly because she hadn’t noticed it earlier. For as much as they were afraid of public opinion, they weren’t afraid to be affectionate in private. Her other aunts and uncles never made their love feel out of place. They all knew and had known for years; they didn’t care. The normalcy of it all made it easier for her rationalize their affection as just “uncle and aunt stuff.” Her eyes widened. And she was alive. _Her mother was alive_.

The last time she had seen Katara was for Zuko’s funeral, dressed in white, looking as beautiful as the moon herself. Her eyes were heavy with sorrow but still shone that vibrant shade of Water Tribe blue. As sad as her eyes were, she smiled and only spoke of the full life Zuko had lived and all that he had achieved. Katara had pulled her aside that day to walk the palace grounds. The air was much need; Izumi wouldn’t have been able to keep her composure without that reprieve. Her mother knew her so well. Her _mother_ knew her so well. Izumi could hardly breathe.

She had to visit Katara. She needed to see her mother.

* * *

The next day, Izumi searched for her godmother to tell her of her plan. Her godmother spent a considerable amount of time in the royal library; it was the first place Izumi thought to look. The library was immeasurably large and was a maze to get through. She had suggested on several occasions for the library to be open for public use but was always turned down. Too many people in the palace, they’d said. But even all the servants and residents of the palace combined couldn’t read all the books that were stored in the library. Izumi searched the library grounds before finding her godmother leaning against one of the tallest cherry bookshelves in the grand room.

Azula was perched atop the highest rung of the shelf ladder. She ran a finger along the row of spines, searching for something. In her other arm was an assemblage of scrolls.

Izumi called to her from the base of the ladder. “Godmother!”

Azula looked down to see Izumi holding the lower rungs of the ladder. She beamed. “Darling! I’ll be down in a second.” She returned her gaze to the shelf, picking a book at will before making her way down.

Once on the ground, she righted her robes with her free hand. “It’s nearly impossible to find what you need in here. We really must find a librarian.” Her eyes scaled the giant bookshelf. “Or three.” Azula dusted her shoulders before beginning to walk.

Izumi followed closely behind her. “Godmother, I need to tell you something.”

“You know, I’m glad you found me,” Azula began, paying very little attention to Izumi’s words. “I have something to tell you, too.” She stopped, standing in the middle of the library.

Izumi, who was wrapped up in what she was about to say, almost bumped into her. A book was shoved into her hands.

“Hold this,” her godmother said.

She read the characters on the worn cover. _The Kama Sutra_? Izumi cringed at the thought of what her godmother might have pulled this out for. Pushing the thought aside, Izumi continued with what she came to say. “Godmother, I’m going to find my mother.”

Azula was hunched over, organizing the scrolls under arm into a cubby, when Izumi spoke. She stopped and stood up straight, turning to her niece. “Well, then I’m _very_ glad you came to me. I have something you need to see.” She pulled a scroll from the cubby. “Your father’s will came in today. He assigned me as its executor.” She walked over to a duo of well-upholstered chairs and gestured for Izumi to sit. She took the chair next to her niece.

“Your father always had great plans for you,” Azula said, looking upon her niece warmly.

Izumi’s eyes widened. She blushed, filled with an emotion she couldn’t name. Pride? Embarrassment? “Plans? …For me?” She clutched the book in her hands. If he had plans for her, she couldn’t have been a mistake.

“Yes.” Azula nodded. She unrolled the scroll. “I already knew what he was planning in life, but seeing it written down here, so that no one could alter it or threaten your future is… astounding. He was wise in making a will.”

Izumi leaned over to her godmother’s side, peeking at the scroll.

Azula snapped it closed, causing Izumi to jump back. She looked into her niece’s eyes intensely. “Your father wanted you to be the next Fire Lord.”

“Me?!” Izumi squeaked.

“Yes, you.” Azula set the scroll on the lacquered end table between them. She leaned on her chair’s armrest. “He believed that you are the future of the Fire Nation.”

Izumi’s eyes were wide, glistening as her aunt spoke.

“He raised you with the knowledge and love he wished he had as a child. Your upbringing was the first in two generations to not center around military grooming. You were raised with the complete knowledge of who we are as a people, what we’ve done. You were raised with love as a priority. Your father wanted you to ascend to the throne _because_ you are of two nations, not in spite of it. Maybe the Fire Nation wasn’t ready for their union in his time, but they may be ready in yours. He believed that your existence alone shows that love can exist after centuries of war.”

Izumi clutched the book in her hands tighter, folding in on herself slightly. “This is a lot…” she mumbled.

“Your entire life was in preparation for this day. You are the first in a line of Fire Nation royalty to be trained in the humanities. Your father’s dream of the royal family being the historical and cultural ambassadors of the Fire Nation begins with you,” Azula said. Her voice was brimming with pride and optimism.

Izumi thought about the years she spent in the Royal Fire Nation University where she studied history and anthropology. She spent her childhood in textbooks and academic journals. Her love of history was something she shared with Zuko, who was always eager to retell even the most mundane of stories as epic battles. She was a royal historian. Her husband was from a family of scholars, even if he’d never published an academic paper himself. Izumi ran a nail along the gilded spine of _The Kama Sutra_. All of her interests, her life’s work…were part of some “plan”? She gritted her teeth. “Do I not get a say? I…” She tried to think of some reasonable objection to being the heir to the throne but couldn’t find any.

Azula smiled, her brow furrowing with sympathy. “It’s a lot I know, but the will isn’t being executed today. You have quite a bit of time until your coronation.”

Coronation? So, she didn’t have a say, after all. Izumi’s breathing came faster. Her godmother spoke as if it were all said and done. “I didn’t even agree to accepting the throne!”

“Then who will in your absence?” Azula asked sharply. Her words echoed through the space. She was growing annoyed with Izumi’s doubts, but upon seeing Izumi’s frightened reaction to her tone, she sighed and tried again. “This was your father’s dying wish. Honor him.”

Izumi looked her feet. Her eyes darted around the floor, following the pattern of the rug beneath her. “I just wanted to see my mother…”

Azula reached out, placing a hand on her goddaughter’s shoulder. “You will. I think the time you’ll spend with her will be much needed break.” She picked the will from where it lay on the table and handed it to Izumi. “Some of the things in here might be of interest to you.”

Izumi took the scroll and handed the book to her aunt. She watched Azula rise from her chair and start towards the library entrance. She looked to the scroll in her hands, clutching it tightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and Kudos thus far! I've been so eager to get this chapter out! It's crazy how long it takes to write something. I thought this chapter would be shorter than it ended up being. Writing is hard!


	4. IV.

Izumi was tired. Tired of being sad, tired of surprises, tired of responsibility. She returned to her room and sat on the silk sheets of her bed. She was tired of crying.

She set the scroll in her hands on the end table next to her bed and lay down. Her hand drifted to her lower belly, rubbing the place where a baby was supposed to be growing. She closed her eyes. “Who will you be?” she mumbled idly. Her finger circled her navel and she realized that it was higher than normal.

Her child had a chance of being a waterbender. The thought often slipped in and out of her mind, but she was always just as speechless as the first time it had occurred to her. She rested an open palm on her belly. How would she be able to know? Did Katara know she would be a firebender?

Izumi heard the door open, footfall, and then felt the bed groan with added weight. Her eyes fluttered open. She looked up to see that Jiro had lain down next to her. She closed her eyes again. “I’m going to meet my mother.”

Jiro nodded, rustling the sheets. “When are you going?”

“Tomorrow,” she answered without hesitation.

He sat up. “Tomorrow? But that isn’t enough time to prepare a convoy or to pack your things––”

Izumi opened her eyes a sliver. “I won’t need a convoy.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going by myself.” A grin worked its way across her face. “I want to slum it like my parents did.”

“Izumi are you crazy?” Jiro admonished.

Izumi sighed; her grin gone. “No, I just want to be alone.”

Jiro stared at her, saying nothing.

She turned onto her side, facing her husband. “I need some time to think. I just found out that Zuko wanted me to be his successor and that my mother is alive. It’s too much to process at once.”

Jiro frowned, his shoulders dropping. He couldn’t argue with his wife’s desire for peace. “It’s a long way to the South Pole,” he said gently.

“I’m going to stop at the Southern Air Temple first,” Izumi said. “I’ll take a hot air balloon, so the trip won’t be as long.”

Jiro was silent. Izumi’s resolve was solid and when she had a purpose, it was useless to stop her from seeing it through. She was fond of travelling alone and without convoy. She took plenty of solo vacations to Ember Island while Zuko was alive. His wife had always been a headstrong and resourceful woman, but this time was different…somehow. She was pregnant; she had her family to think of. “…Aren’t you afraid of something happening to you?”

“What could happen, Jiro?”

He searched for an example. “You’re the heir-apparent. Someone could kidnap you, hold you for ransom, or worse!”

Izumi gave her husband a curious look. “Only you and Godmother know that I’m the heir-apparent. To everyone else, I’m just Azula’s ward.”

“Even _that_ is a reason to keep you safe at home,” he said, quickly rationalizing.

Izumi sat up, propping herself up with her arms. She searched her husband’s face. “Jiro, what’s _really_ the matter?”

Jiro looked down. He couldn’t meet her eyes. “It’s hard to explain, but you’re not just ‘Izumi’ anymore. You’re pregnant now; you’re in a more…delicate state.”

Izumi furrowed her brow, cocking her head. She cupped his chin. “Aww,” she cooed, “You’re worried about me.”

He looked to Izumi, gazing into her eyes with a slight smile on his lips. “Naturally.”

“I’ll be fine.” She let her arm drop. “Last I heard from Aang, he and Toph are at the Southern Air Temple. I won’t be all alone.”

Jiro covered her hand with his. “That’s reassuring.”

“Good, because I’m going no matter what.” She kissed his cheek.

* * *

The next day, Jiro and Azula accompanied Izumi to the hot air balloon’s loading deck. Jiro slung Izumi’s bag over his shoulder and Azula carried some sweets wrapped in a cloth. The sun was just starting to peek out from the horizon. Izumi wanted to leave in the afternoon, but Jiro suggested that she leave in the morning in order to have a head start before the sun beat down on her. Azula agreed and it was settled. In the morning, she would go.

Jiro offered his hand to help Izumi into the balloon’s carriage, which she took graciously. She stepped over the carriage entrance, lifting the skirts of her robe. Once she was inside, Jiro stepped in beside her to put down her bag. He stood in front of Izumi, slightly towering over her, and looked into her eyes. She looked up at him, returning his gaze. He took her hands in his.

He kissed the top of her head. “Be safe,” he whispered into her hair. He brought her hands to his lips, kissing one, then the other. “I’ll miss you every day.”

Izumi’s heart melted. “I won’t be gone long,” she said softly.

Azula cleared her throat. She held up the food in her hands. “I have something for you, too.”

Jiro smiled sheepishly. He bowed to his wife and stepped out of the carriage.

Azula stepped forward. She handed Izumi the wrapped sweets. “For the road,” she said. Izumi took them with a bow. She reached under her arm to pull out the suede hide and Zuko’s will. “Some reading to keep you company.”

Izumi took the letters and the scroll, bowing once more. “Thank you.”

Azula closed the carriage door and Izumi locked it from the inside. She stepped back from the hot air balloon and waved. “Safe travels!”

Izumi rolled her wrist and shot fire into the balloon’s engine hatch. The envelope rose as Izumi gave the burner more life. She stopped firebending when the carriage started to lift from the ground. She looked to her aunt and husband, waving at them. “I’ll be back sooner than you know!” she called.

The two waved at her from their spots on the loading deck, only stopping when she was too far up to be seen. Jiro dropped his arm with a heavy sigh. Azula, who was smiling proudly at the sky, turned to him, placing a hand on his back. “She’ll be alright.”

Jiro turned to her and smiled wearily. “I know.”


	5. V.

It took some time for Katara and Zuko to find each other after the war. Immediately following the Avatar’s defeat of Fire Lord Ozai and Zuko’s coronation, the gang went their separate ways. Toph to her parents in Gaoling, Sokka and Suki to Kyoshi Island, Katara to her family in the South Pole, and Aang to Ba Sing Se.

The romance that blossomed between Katara and Aang slowly burned out as they both realized they wanted different things. Katara wanted to be home with her family after years apart and Aang wanted to keep the spirit of the nomads alive by travelling around the newly peaceful world. It took time, but after a year of travelling together, they decided to go their separate ways. The split took place in the very city their relationship had formed. After Katara left for the South Pole, Aang stayed in Ba Sing Se mostly to mope, but made friends along the way. During his time there, he made good with a few university students, snuck his way into a few anthropology classes, and attended office hours to chat with a handful of professors. They agreed that there should be some way to preserve the Air Nomad culture and lifestyle so that it wouldn’t die with him. With the approval of the university’s president, Aang and the anthropology professors started the Air Archives. Creating a university archive meant that Aang had to stay in Ba Sing Se for weeks at a time, but he occasionally went on field trips to the Air Temples with anthropologists who catalogued the sights.

During one of his extended stays in the Earth Kingdom, Aang got the idea to swing by Gaoling to find Toph. He was received in the Beifong estate by her parents, who weren’t exactly ecstatic to see him, but were gracious enough to allow him to stay. He and Toph walked the gardens just as they did when they first met. They both were a year older. Though the time wasn’t much, Aang quickly realized that he missed having her around. They stood on the stone bridge in the garden, over the small stream that bisected the property. Toph was slightly taller than she was when they had last seen each other. She still wore her hair up, but her face was a bit leaner, her lips a bit fuller. Her hips were wider, too. Aang blushed and diverted his gaze to the stream, watching the lily pads float. She’s changed. He’s changed, too. But was it something she would notice?

Aang cleared his throat. “How have things been with your parents?”

Toph shrugged, leaning onto the bridge’s ledge. “Okay, I guess.”

That wasn’t much of an answer. “What do you mean by ‘okay’?”

She sighed. “After travelling the world with you guys, I missed them too much. That’s why I came back. But when you’re back…you stop missing them.”

“They’re still keeping you in the house?”

“No. They can’t anymore.” She smiled. “I went and made a name for myself. They had no choice but to be proud of me. The whole nation thinks I’m a hero.”

Aang smiled. “That sounds great!”

Her face dropped again. “It isn’t that great when you realize that no one knew who you were at all until a year ago. And it isn’t great to come back to rules and society parties when you’ve gotten used to being free.”

“Oh…” Aang said, leaning against the ledge. “Sorry.”

Toph turned around and rested her back against the ledge, burying her hands in her hair. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m just bored and I miss you guys. I hate being just a regular kid again.” There was a lull in the conversation. “What about you? What has the Avatar been up to?”

“I’ve actually been here for the past few weeks. In the Earth Kingdom.”

Toph raised an eyebrow.

“I’m helping them build an archive of Air Nomad culture at Ba Sing Se University,” he said, trying and failing to hide how proud he felt.

“Wow, that’s amazing!”

“You should come see it sometime!” he suggested, grinning.

“Yeah, I would, but––” Toph started.

“Oh, yeah, you can’t you’re––” Aang mumbled, catching his mistake.

“Yeah…” they said at the same time. Toph began to laugh. Aang blushed and rubbed the back of his head.

“It’s good to see you again, Twinkle Toes.”

“It’s good to see you, too.”

Aang spent dinner with the Beifongs. He intended to leave the following morning, but Toph insisted that he stay a while longer. Her parents weren’t too keen on the idea, but they agreed, not wanting to appear miserly. He stayed three more days, and, in that time, he made her laugh more than she had in a year and she made him happier than he’d felt in the same amount time. Their goodbyes were curt on both ends to keep from acknowledging the warm fondness that was revived in such a short time.

* * *

After the split, Katara went back to the South Pole and worked until her hands were sore. She spent her days rebuilding the tribe with snow and ice along with the help of the Northern waterbenders. She initially wanted to come home and spend some much needed time with her father and grandmother, but relaxing at home meant being idle. Being idle meant thinking about her breakup. So, she kept herself busy.

The time spent at the South Pole passed quickly. Waking up every morning to craft new structures out of snow and ice gave her purpose. She became so swept up in the work that she couldn’t notice weeks passing by, then months. She only woke up to the passage of time when her brother returned from Kyoshi Island.

He entered their igloo, lifting the hides that covered the entryway. Suki came in after him.

Katara looked up from her blueprints with surprise. “Sokka!” She stood and embraced her brother first, then Suki. “I thought you were going to be on Kyoshi Island for another month?”

“Uh, it _has_ been another month,” he said.

“Oh…” Katara noticed the necklace Suki wore. A blue sash with a carved whale bone pendant. A betrothal necklace. “Don’t you guys think it’s a bit early?” she asked, gesturing to Suki’s new adornment. Sokka and Suki were both 17, technically of marrying age, but their relationship was still young. Most early betrothals happened between childhood friends.

Suki touched the necklace affectionately. “It’s more of a promise,” she explained. “I’m only staying a few weeks before heading back home. I have warriors to train. The village still needs rebuilding.” She looked to Sokka.

“But after all is said and done, we’ll have a wedding ceremony here,” he finished, wrapping an arm around Suki’s waist.

 _After all is said and done_? “That sounds like you’ll be on Kyoshi Island for another year,” said Katara.

Suki shrugged. “Who knows? I’ll be there as long as my people need me.”

“And I’ll be here as long as you and Dad need me.” Sokka nodded.

Katara smiled, beaming at them both. “I’m glad you guys could agree on things so easily.” Her mind drifted to her split with Aang. He would have never agreed to such an arrangement.

Sokka sensed the strained emotion in his sister’s voice. He laid a hand on Katara’s shoulder. “It’s alright. Not every relationship works out.”

“Have you spoken to Zuko?” Suki asked.

Katara fiddled with her mittens avoidantly. “No. I doubt he’d want to hear from me.”

“Nonsense! I’m sure he does!” Sokka said, shaking her shoulders.

In the midst of burying herself under all her work, Katara had noticed letters were piling up in her room. Some from Toph, some from Sokka, some from Zuko. She replied to Toph and Sokka’s letters easily enough, but she could never think of what to say to Zuko. Her letters always came across as curt and overly polite. Any more sentiment could have revealed how she truly felt, so she had kept them short. He eventually stopped writing. Katara reasoned that it was because her responses seemed less than enthusiastic.

“Maybe you should go visit him,” Suki suggested.

“Maybe…” she echoed.

“If you’re more comfortable here, that’s fine, too,” Sokka said, reassuring her.

But she couldn’t hide forever.

After Suki left for Kyoshi Island, Katara’s itinerary filled back up almost immediately. Her sixteenth birthday came and went with her head buried under plans for a new council. She shared the plans with Sokka, who shared them with their father. Hakoda had them presented to the elders of the tribe, who wanted its immediate construction. The Southern Water Tribe Heritage Preservation Council was Katara’s next big project after the reconstruction efforts were almost complete. After the Northern waterbenders had begun to head back home, Katara realized that the way of the Southern waterbenders was almost completely extinct.

Though she was too young to carry an administrative role on the council she created, her input was valued by the appointed councilmen and she was guaranteed a spot on the board when she turned twenty.

Months passed by as she sat in on council meetings and oversaw the construction of the council’s building. She spent weeks with an architect to ensure that the building didn’t resemble the Northern Water Tribe offices too closely. Not only was the way of the Southern waterbenders disappearing, but their architecture, too. Soon enough, another year had passed and Katara was seventeen. She only noticed the time when Sokka handed her a letter that came in the mail.

It was an invite from the Fire Nation, from Zuko. He suggested a retreat to Ember Island to celebrate the second anniversary of the end of the Hundred Year War.

“Isn’t this great?” Sokka asked. “We’ve been working all this time and now we get a free vacation!”

Katara stared at the paper in her hands. “Yeah…” Everyone would be there. Aang and Zuko would be there. As excited as she was to see Toph and Suki again, the thought of meeting her ex and her… _friend_ in the same place was daunting. To think these feelings would have been quashed if she had just responded to their letters.

She didn’t let her inhibitions show as Sokka gushed about being back on the warm beaches of Ember Island. She stayed mute while he wrote back to Zuko and packed their bags. She was quiet on the boat ride back to the Fire Nation, to the place her feelings for Zuko were first ignited.

They arrived in the evening. Katara hoped to spend time with Toph and Suki, but the two of them had their own plans. Toph was already with Aang on the terrace of the beach house when they arrived. Suki tackled Sokka as soon as he stepped foot off the boat; they were inseparable, as usual.

Katara still kept hope that she would somehow be able to steal Toph away from Aang. She lingered around where they sat on the terrace, leaning against the wooden paneling of the house. She was behind them, slightly hidden by the dense brush that surrounded the house. From her spot, she could see the moon poking out from the few clouds that were in the sky. The two were sitting on the steps that led into the house and spoke lowly. Katara couldn’t eavesdrop even if she wanted to. After waiting for several minutes, her attention turned from Toph to the sky, the cool night air, the moon that was in its waxing gibbous phase. She sighed, resting her body against the house. She had missed the calm of the beach. She hadn’t seen sand in two years.

“Spying on them?”

Katara turned around with a start. Zuko stood in the brush. His hair was longer than it was when she had last seen it; he wore it in a top knot without his crown. He was also taller and stockier. Living in the palace must have allowed him to gain the muscle he lost when he was banished. He was nineteen now, no longer a boy, but a man. And not only a man, but a king. Katara blushed, stumbling on her words. “No! I just wanted to talk to Toph.”

He stepped next to her, resting a shoulder on the house. “Good luck with that. She’s barely said two words to me since Aang got here.” His voice was level. He wasn’t angry with her or annoyed by her presence, or if he was, he didn’t show it.

“I’m sorry for not writing you. Or visiting, for that matter.” Katara figured that it’d be best to address the elephant in the room.

“You’re busy. I understand,” he said coolly. “Sokka told me as much.”

Katara let out a breath, relieved. “How are things with you and Mai?”

“We, uh, broke it off.” His hands went to his vest, undoing and redoing the silk sash that held it together.

Katara raised an eyebrow and gave him a punishing smirk. “That’s something you left out of your letters.”

“It happened recently,” he stated seriously. “You and Aang?”

She turned back to the moon. “We’ve been broken up for a year now.”

Zuko raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t mention _that_ in your letters.”

“Yeah,” Katara sighed, “I barely wrote, anyways.” She decided to give up on Toph and rounded the corner of the house to the other entrance. Zuko followed her.

“That’s true. Why didn’t you write me?” he asked as he stepped over bushes and twigs.

Katara moved aside a low-hanging branch. “Why did you stop writing?”

“You seemed like you didn’t care,” Zuko said defensively. “You’ve been broken up with Aang for a year and didn’t even tell me.”

She looked back at him through the corner of her eye. “What difference would it have made to you?”

Zuko scoffed. “I think it would have made all the difference.”

Katara huffed. They reached the house’s front door. She climbed the steps and entered the house, holding the door open for Zuko. “It doesn’t matter, anyways.”

“Why wouldn’t it matter?”

“Because I have my life and you have yours,” she stated.

Zuko shook his head. “You know I could have been married by now?”

“You know _I_ could have?”

“I had a fiancée,” he explained, “but why would she want to marry someone whose heart wasn’t in the relationship?”

Katara crossed her arms. She looked around the house, searching for something to rest her eyes on. Her mind was restless. They were all here the year prior to celebrate the first anniversary of the end of the war. During that time, Zuko was still with Mai and Katara was on the last legs of her relationship with Aang. One night, they walked on the beach and had a frank discussion about their friendship. Their closeness was always seen as a threat by their respective partners because it was. They infinitely preferred each other to confide their feelings and share new things. The night would have resulted in one of two decisions: breaking off their relationships or staying far away from each other. They chose the latter. The latter didn’t work out.

Hearing Zuko confess these things made Katara’s steely resolve melt a little. He still felt the same after all this time. “I have a council to run.”

He saw straight through her excuse. “You’re not even old enough to be on the council.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have my own life in the South Pole!” She placed her hands on her hips. “Do you want me to give my life up to be here playing your girlfriend?”

“I’m not asking you to do that. I just want you to write back like you care,” he said gently. There was still a bit of tension in his voice, but his tone was sincere. “Even if you can’t be here all the time, you can visit, can’t you?”

Katara pouted. She wanted to stay mad; she still had some fight left in her. But it made no sense to keep fighting, not when Zuko was offering an olive branch. She looked down at her feet. “I thought you didn’t want to see me,” she admitted.

“Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

“Because it was my suggestion to stay apart,” she said, shaking her head. “It was dumb, like delaying the inevitable. You were right and I felt foolish.”

Zuko approached her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Being wrong doesn’t stop me from loving you.”

Katara’s ears ticked at the word “love.” She looked up to him before melting into his embrace and resting her head on his chest. Their friendship had grown into love. Her love turned into anger and avoidance. It manifested itself in how she threw herself into work, trying to forget him. But every building, every meeting that ran late made her think of him even more.

“You don’t have to choose between me and your people. I could never ask that of you,” he said into her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this, Act 1 is over! This update took longer than I would have liked because I wanted to post both chapters a the same time. I feel like they go together. The world of Legacy offers so many opportunities for one-off stories about the Gaang. Let me know if you'd be interested in reading stories that take place in this AU!


	6. VI.

Izumi landed on the Southern Air Temple islands midday. She didn’t land the balloon at the temple, choosing instead land on one of the islands surrounding it. She spent the entirety of the day before in flight, reading her parents’ letters and eating the treats Azula had left for her. From where she landed, there was a view of the temple’s towers jutting into the sky over the forest. She was just a day’s walk from the temple itself. The journey would probably take a few hours of flight, if that, but she decided to rest instead.

The hot air balloon was docked on the edge of the beach. Izumi pushed the carriage far enough on the sands that the water couldn’t reach it and carry it away. Satisfied with her work, she trekked into the island’s brush. She shed her long silk robes before doing so, walking into the forest wearing just her slip. The map she followed to the island claimed there was a spring hidden among the trees on the island’s south end. Travelling from the humid air of the Fire Nation to the winds of the South had her in need of a bath. She ducked under branches and pushed through vines, stepping carefully over salamander-snakes and viper-frogs. After trudging for a while, becoming dirtier and sweatier than before, she came across a clearing.

The clearing was decorated with stone statues in various states of decay. Each statue had a nomad with closed eyes, meditating. The meager sunlight that was able to escape the jungle canopy bounced off their smooth, cream-colored heads. Just a few steps further lay the spring. The waterfall that supplied the spring’s pool was adorned with a stone mantelpiece that had the insignia of the Air Nomads carved into it.

“Finally.”

Smiling, Izumi stepped over the forest banks and onto the clearing. She removed her shoes while walking to the spring, almost tripping over herself in the process. Her slip was shed, with her sarashi and pants not falling to far behind. She stepped into the spring bare, the cool water shocking her senses.

She let the water flow to her shoulders as she stepped further inside the pond. The water was cold, too cold. She warmed it with her body, bringing heat to the surface of her skin without drawing fire. Steam lifted into the air and opened her pores, caught in her hair, and soothed her throat. She sighed. Bringing her palms to her face, she fanned water over her skin, rubbing away the grime of travel. She loosed her hair from its top knot and laid her head back, dipping her hair into the water and staring up into the jungle canopy. Her feet were still resting on the floor of the spring. Feeling bold, she tensed her back, lifting her feet little by little until one leg was off the floor, then the other. She moved her arms away from her body, letting the water carry her as she floated.

Waterbenders trusted the water. Of course, they did. Whenever she spent time with Katara and her uncle Sokka on Kyoshi Island, they’d swim. The water at the Poles was too cold to swim in for long periods of time, so they made sure to take advantage of the warmer weather. Her mother was always able to move around with grace and agility. It could have been due to her bending, but even non-benders from the Water Tribes were able to trust water more readily than she’d ever seen anyone from the Fire Nation do. Sokka would spend long swaths of time just floating in the water. Sometimes he would fall asleep, never afraid of drowning.

Izumi’s hands drifted to her belly and she sunk lower into the water. She squeezed her eyes closed and gasped; her lips were barely above the water’s surface. Panicked, she righted herself, letting her feet touch the spring floor.

Trusting the water was hard. Moving onto her stomach, Izumi swam through the water, kicking her feet off of the spring floor. She could move through it seamlessly when her arms and legs controlled the motion, controlled where she was going. It was easier to command the water than it was to let it guide. Holding her breath, she dunked her head under the water, swimming below its surface. She swam parallel to the floor, swimming past a drop-off in the spring. A glint from the depths of the drop-off caught her eye. She moved lower. Grazing the muddy spring floor with her fingertips, she reached for a smooth, pearlescent stone. She clutched the stone in her hands, staring at it before holding it up to the light. Her eyes moved from the outline of the stone to the trail of carbon dioxide bubbles that left her nostrils, heading for the surface. _The surface_. Pushing off the spring floor, she fluttered her legs until she broke the surface tension, gasping for air.

She held herself upright by treading the water. Spreading an open palm over the stone, she wiped it of grime. It was just as iridescent in the light as it was underwater, maybe more so. She turned it in her hand and held it up to the small sun that peeked out of the canopy above her. Her eyes refocused, catching sight of something just beyond where her hand was holding the stone. It moved quickly across the sky.

A sky bison.

Izumi smiled. Aang. He must be heading to the temple.

She dropped the stone, allowing it to sink back to its place on the spring floor as she swam to the water’s edge.

* * *

Izumi landed at the mouth of the temple’s main spire around before sundown. While night hadn’t cloaked the island yet, the sun was set low in the sky, bathing the white walls of the temple in oranges and pinks. She stepped out of the hot air balloon’s carriage. The view was breathtaking. She stood at the mountain’s edge. She had rarely visited the Air Temples as a girl. The mountains surrounding the temples were tall and jagged, barely any plateaus to climb. How anyone was able to scale them without airbending was a mystery. Izumi looked further down, observing the lush greenery that grew at the base of the mountain range. The Fire Nation must have used dragons to attack the temples.

“Izumi?”

She turned to see Toph standing at the temple’s entrance. A smile worked its way across her face. “Auntie!” She ran to Toph and wrapped her arms around her, knocking her back.

After the shock of impact, Toph leaned into the embrace, patting her hand on Izumi’s back. “We weren’t expecting you,” she said warmly. Her stance shifted. She pulled Izumi back and examined her, gripping her arms hard. She held her there for a minute. “You’re pregnant,” she stated.

“H-how did you know?” Izumi asked sheepishly.

Toph let go of her arms. “I can feel it.” She turned, walking into the temple. She gestured for Izumi to follow her. “Come on.”

The waning sunlight didn’t reach the inside of the temple at all. Izumi lit a fire in her palm. Toph moved forward without difficulty. They walked down the dim hallway, Izumi following clumsily as Toph turned left and right down corridors without warning. In the warm firelight, Izumi could see the monks carved into the walls of the hallway. Aang once told her that each of the monks were great airbenders in their time. The statues had an order to them, but she had since forgotten it. She bumped into Toph. They reached a lofted room at the edge of the temple. Instead of windows or walls, the room had an arcade around the perimeter offering a panoramic view of the mountainous jungle below the temple. The open room also allowed air to pass through easily, making the place cool, almost cold.

“Look who I found,” Toph said as she walked into the room.

Aang was sitting at a low table in the center of the room with his sons, Bumi and Tenzin. They were sharing a hot pot and noodles. Izumi stepped into the room. The place smelled of forest breeze. So much air whipped around that the smell of food didn’t carry.

Aang turned to face her. He smiled. “Izumi! How long has it been?”

She sat at the low table. Toph sat next to her. “Maybe two months.”

Aang peered over the paper he was reading. “I mean since you’ve been here, at the Southern Air Temple.”

“Oh!” Izumi swept a lock of hair behind her hear. “Not since I was a kid.”

“I think you haven’t seen Bumi or Tenzin in that time, either,” Toph said. She handed her bowl to Aang, who spooned noodles and soup into it before handing it back. “Don’t be shy, take some food.”

Izumi took a bowl that was sitting unused at the corner of the table. She gave herself a small helping of soup and noodles. “I think I’ve seen them,” she said, looking to Tenzin, then Bumi.

The boys, as she used to call them, were now men. Bumi had to be about thirty, which placed Tenzin around twenty-seven. They used to play together at the palace when she was young. She also saw them whenever her parents visited the Earth Kingdom or the Air Temples. They were like brothers to her, the closest thing to siblings she’d ever had. They grew apart after they all went off to university, found their places in the world, et cetera. As much as she wished she could see them more often, they still wrote to each other and had their one-off encounters.

“I think we met in the Earth Kingdom forums last year,” Tenzin said thoughtfully.

Bumi noticed the small amount of food in Izumi’s bowl. “Go on, Zumi! Don’t be shy,” he goaded, pushing her arm. “Or do you not stuff your face as much as before?”

Izumi pushed back, smiling. “Oh, shut up.” She added more noodles to her bowl.

“I hope you’re taking a good amount,” Toph chided. She turned to Aang while gesturing to Izumi. “You know she’s pregnant? And she’s over here eating like she needs to _lose_ weight!”

Izumi shrank in her seat. “Ugh, Auntie!”

Aang chuckled. “You’re talking to her like it’s a punishment.” He turned to Izumi. “Congratulations. That’s such good news.”

“Congratulations,” Tenzin said, wide-eyed.

“Congrats!” Bumi clapped a hand on her shoulder. “A little Zumi! It’ll be just like old times!”

Izumi moved Bumi’s hand from her shoulder. “How? Unless you have a pregnant wife that I don’t know about?”

Bumi paused. “No…but…”

Izumi nodded. “Exactly.”

“What brings you to the Southern Air Temple? Especially now?” asked Tenzin. He grabbed the teapot on the table and poured some tea into his cup.

Izumi narrowed her eyes. “What’s ‘especially now’ supposed to mean?”

“Well, you’re travelling alone while pregnant––”

Izumi groaned. “Why do people keep saying that? I travel alone all the time. I’m pregnant this time, so what?” She stirred her food in its bowl before gathering some noodles on her chopsticks. “I’m going to the South Pole. This is just a pit stop.”

Aang perked up. “What’s at the South Pole?”

Izumi slurped her noodles. After swallowing, she spoke. “When Zuko died, I was given a lot of letters. They were from him.”

Aang looked to Toph, who set down her bowl and chopsticks. She raised an eyebrow.

“The letters said that he’s my father and that Katara is my mother.”

Tenzin spat out his tea, slamming down his cup. Bumi stopped mid-bite, his noodles slipping off their chopsticks.

Bumi sat up, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “You know what? I can see the resemblance.”

“It’s good that you know,” Toph said after a long pause.

Izumi grabbed a cup and poured herself some tea. “It feels good to know.”

“…And you’re handling this news…well?” Aang asked.

“As well as I can, I guess.” Izumi held the tea under her nose, breathing in its aroma. “It’s been hard but I’m glad to be here to decompress. I’m sure I’ll feel better after I see Katara.”

“Why isn’t Jiro with you?” It was Tenzin who spoke this time.

“I wanted to be alone with my thoughts.”

Aang spoke again. “And have you found peace?”

She smiled. “I’m getting there.”

Aang nodded. “That’s good.”

“Are you going with Kya?” Toph asked before slurping her soup.

Izumi raised an eyebrow. “Kya?”

Toph stopped abruptly, holding her bowl midair. “Uh…” Her eyes darted in Aang’s direction.

Aang looked to Toph. He was able to sense his wife’s unease and shared the sentiment. Bumi looked to Tenzin, who looked back. _Uh-oh_.

Izumi looked to everyone at the table one by one, panic mounting as the silence droned on. “Who’s Kya?”

“Your letters didn’t mention her?” Aang asked gently.

“No!” Izumi was on the brink of a full-fledged panic. She looked to Tenzin and Bumi with confusion.

Bumi cleared his throat. “Kya is a girl we used to pal around with on Kyoshi Island.”

“What does she have to do with my trip?!” Izumi was quickly losing control of her tone.

Toph raised her hands to signal her to calm down. “Your father probably explained her relationship to you better than we can.”

“He didn’t!” Izumi covered her face with her hands. She was so tired.

Aang glanced at his sons. He gave them a meaningful look and they immediately understood what it meant. He stood from the low table and collected the empty bowls and cups. He gently took Toph’s arm, raising her to stand. “Boys, if you could take Izumi for some air?”

They nodded. Tenzin turned to Izumi, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s walk around the temple grounds,” he said gently, nearly whispering.

“There’s a lot to see,” Bumi agreed.

* * *

The three circled the perimeter of the temple before deciding to climb one of the spires. They chose the lowest one, as not to exhaust Izumi. She complained, stating that she’s not fragile, but went anyways.

After reaching the top level of the tower, they went out to the balcony. It opened out to another gorgeous view of the mountains. Izumi sat on a stone bench at the balcony’s edge. Bumi and Tenzin sat on either side of her.

“I can’t believe it. I’m so tired of the surprises,” she began after collapsing onto the bench. She sighed.

Bumi and Tenzin looked at her with consideration, waiting for her finish her thought.

Izumi drifted a hand to her belly, taking in a weighty breath. “Just when you think you’re getting a grip on the world…” She shook her head. Her breathing became shaky. She looked to either side of her. “How do you know Kya?”

Bumi spoke first. “Well, what I said was the truth. We used to play with her on Kyoshi Island as kids like we used to do with you in the Fire Nation.”

Izumi watched Bumi’s mouth as he spoke. “Friend of our parents?”

Tenzin cut in. “She’s your sister.”

Izumi turned to him. Her jaw dropped. She slumped against the bench, resting her head on the backrest and closing her eyes. Her hand grabbed for something. She didn’t know what for until Bumi took it, covering her hand with his. She laughed bitterly. “Of course.” She paused. “How do you know?”

Tenzin moved to answer but caught Bumi’s eye. Bumi shook his head. Tenzin started again. “How did you find out about your parents?”

Izumi dragged a hand over her face. “Letters. Godmother gave me whole stack of them a couple weeks after Zuko passed.” She opened her eyes, staring they sky above. The sun was almost completely set. Stars began to poke out. “Also, his will. Godmother gave me that, too.”

“Why don’t look at those letters for some answers?” Bumi asked. “I’m sure she’s mentioned somewhere in them.”

Izumi looked back to Bumi, who still held her hand. “I swear, she’s not. But if you guys want to knock yourselves out, go ahead.”

Tenzin stood. “Where’d you keep the letters?”

Izumi pointed westward with her free hand. “They’re in my hot air balloon at the western temple entrance. You can’t miss it.”

Tenzin nodded, approaching the edge of the balcony. He hopped over it, using his airbending to glide down the side of the tower, leaving Bumi and Izumi alone under the darkened sky.

Izumi’s breathing was still shaky. She was on the verge of tears, but the tears didn’t come. She smiled sardonically. “All this time, I thought I was an only child.”

Bumi gripped her hand tightly, running a thumb over the back of her palm to comfort her. “Does it change anything for you?”

She furrowed her brow. “No? Maybe? I just… I have to meet her.”

“I’m sure you’ve already met. We used to spend so many solstices in the South Pole.”

Izumi nodded. “Yeah…we did.” She was silent for a moment while she thought. “She must have been raised in South Pole with our mother. But why keep us separated?”

Bumi raised his hand to her shoulder. “I’m sure they had––”

“A good reason,” Izumi interrupted. She waved him off. “Yeah, yeah.”

He laughed, patting Izumi on the back. “You’ll be fine, kid.”

As if on cue, Tenzin came into view, propelling himself over the railing and onto the stone floor of the balcony. He held the suede hide and Zuko’s will. He took his place next to Izumi on the bench, passing Bumi half of the papers. “There’s more here than we can read tonight.”

Izumi defensively grabbed some papers out of Tenzin’s hands. “You don’t have to _read_ them all. Just look for ‘Kya.’”

The three skimmed through the letters, checking and rechecking each one. Out of habit, Tenzin stopped to read a few, which earned him a scolding from Izumi.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, thumbing through several pages at once. “She really isn’t mentioned in any of these.”

Izumi started an “I told you so” before realizing that she hadn’t checked the will. In fact, she hadn’t read the will at all. She picked the scroll from Tenzin’s lap and unrolled it. Her eyes moved hastily over the words. _To my wife, Katara, I leave… To my first born, Izumi, I leave…_ She unknowingly held her breath as her eyes continued downward. Tension built in her stomach. _To my second born, Kya…_ There it was.

Izumi laid a finger on the parchment, running a nail along each of the characters in “Kya.” A sister. With a Water Tribe name. Why wasn’t she mentioned in the letters?

Izumi almost forgot how to speak. “The will––it was in the will,” she croaked. She touched the paper again. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Just a name.”

Tenzin and Bumi leaned in on either side of her to look at the scroll.

“Well, there it is,” said Bumi.

“Y––you said she lives on Kyoshi Island, right?” Izumi asked without taking her eyes from the paper in her hands.

The brothers shared a look. “She used to live there when we were kids,” Tenzin explained. “I’m not sure if she’s still there.”

Izumi gulped dryly. She rerolled the scroll and placed it on her lap. “She’ll either be there or in the South Pole. And I’m heading to the South Pole, anyways.”

Bumi handed back his stack of letters. “Are you taking a detour?”

Izumi exhaled and nodded. “I want to meet my sister.”


	7. VII.

After the night of the second anniversary on Ember Island, letters between Zuko and Katara flowed easily. She updated him on everything she did at the South Pole, from the most minute of occurrences to the larger things like natural disasters, new buildings, and births. He cherished every letter she wrote, not throwing away a single one. When he wrote his replies, he made sure to reference things that happened two, three letters ago. She never showed the same level of consideration for his letters, but it never bothered him.

Their first kiss happened in the South Pole. Katara invited him to celebrate the winter solstice with her family. It was the last night of the festival, the actual day of the solstice. The day before, Zuko had seen Katara in full face paint and Water Tribe regalia as the First Waterbender. A title that was, he learned, transferred to a master waterbender every year during a ritual play done during the festival week. The folktale went as follows; as the sun became more scarce in the sky, hunting became harder and more dangerous. The First Waterbender watched the moon pull the tides to higher heights as it spent more time in the sky. By the last full moon of the winter, the First Waterbender pulled a tide so large that it brought with it enough fish to feed the village. Thankful for this gift, the waterbender held a feast in the moon’s honor. Katara had drawn in the fish for the final night’s feast with her face painted blue and white while wearing a wolf’s pelt. She looked beautiful and fearsome, like the warrior she was during the Hundred Year War.

The final night’s festivities included the final act of the play which occurred before the Feast of Tui (now called the Feast of Yue). Zuko, as the guest of honor, was seated next to Chief Hakoda at the head table. The play had Katara, as the First Waterbender, present a smoked fish to the actress that played Yue. Sokka grumbled in the next chair over about the costuming of Yue’s actress, but Zuko was too enthralled by Katara’s dress to notice. She wore the wolf’s pelt over her shoulders and her face paint had a different pattern. The costuming was masculine but fit her very well. The role of First Waterbender was meant to be played by a man, but Katara was the only master waterbender in a generation, so she played the role year after year. She took it seriously, Zuko could tell by her steely eyes and the way her upper lip was set. Every move she made was full of grace, like she had perfected the rites.

After “Yue” blessed the offering, the crowd stood up at the tables and cheered. Zuko cheered more wildly than most. He caught Katara’s eye. She maintained her stoic look and nodded to him. He couldn’t have been more proud.

Katara was in her igloo, removing her face paint after the play ended. She pinned back her hair and rubbed her cheeks with a damp cloth. She checked her reflection in the mirror, making sure to get the paint under her jaw. The hides that covered the entryway were lifted; Zuko walked in. She turned to face him. “Oh! You don’t have to wait for me. I’ll join you guys at the table.”

Ignoring her advice, he sat beside her on the floor’s fur rug. “You were amazing!”

She blushed. “You think so?”

“Yes,” he said, beaming. “This must be so important to you.”

Katara put down the stained cloth and stared at her reflection. “It is. This is one of the few rituals that are uniquely from the Southern Water Tribe.” She removed the pins from her hair and started to braid it into her usual hair style.

“You mean the North Pole doesn’t have anything like this?”

“Well, they have their own solstice celebration, but they don’t have the Feast of Yue or the play.”

Zuko watched her attentively, waiting for her to continue talking.

“It’s not only a way to thank the moon for what she provides, but also to celebrate waterbenders and what they do for our people.” She sighed. Her hands left her hair, part of the braid came undone. “I’m honored to do this every year, but the solstice reminds me that I’m the only one left.” She took a deep breath and replaced her hands at the end of her braid. “It’s bittersweet.”

Zuko watched her finish braiding her hair with concern. There was nothing he could say to ease her pain. His people, his family, specifically, were responsible for the near eradication of the Southern waterbenders. But she’s still here. Despite the small numbers of the Southern Water Tribe, they’re still here. Their culture was still here. Their feast was still here. And Katara had a big hand in keeping it alive. “I’m so proud of you,” he said softly.

Katara barely registered his words. “Wha––”

“I’m so proud of everything you’ve done for your people. What you continue to do.” He tried and failed to match words to his emotions. “There was this indescribable feeling in my chest when I saw you in that costume. It’s…something that I had never seen before––or felt! And––and the fact that you started that council just so the world could know that the North and South are different––a council that you can’t even be on…It’s just… amazing––”

Zuko’s clumsy words were cut off by Katara’s lips pressing against his own, tackling him with so much force that he fell back onto the rug. She peppered his face with kisses before returning to his lips. He wrapped his arms around her body, pressing her tightly against him. She pulled away and held his face in her hands. “I love you so much.”

The noise of revelry and merrymaking seeped in from outside. She kissed him again. Zuko drew back, pressing his forehead to hers. “I love you more than you know.”

* * *

The first night they slept in the same bed was on Zuko’s twenty-second birthday. After a night of debauchery, the two were so tired that they didn’t care where they slept, a feeling shared by each of their friends. Katara fell into the bed first, landing on her face and immediately falling asleep. Zuko didn’t have the energy to wake her and tell her that it was _his_ room she chose to pass out in. He simply slid under the covers next to her and pulled the duvet over her shoulders. The next day, they awoke in a tangle of limbs with a searing headache as their only complaint.

Their first intimate night together didn’t follow long after that. Zuko’s forehead pressed against hers as he entered her, leaning down to whisper in her ear. Katara buried a hand in his hair, wrapping her legs around his waist to encourage him. Neither was the other’s first, but each was the other’s best. In the afterglow, Katara rested her head on Zuko’s chest and sighed. “In the old days, this would mean we’re married,” she mused.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “I already consider you my wife.”

* * *

The two lived like this for years: together separately. They could never stay in one place for long due engagements in their home countries, but they planned visits around each other’s schedules. Katara was chosen as an ambassador to the Fire Nation in her twenty-first year, which allowed the two to be together more often. They met with passion each time and kept each other updated to the hour when they left.

Their relationship was an open secret in the palace of which several ministers disapproved. Being aware of this disapproval, Katara never pushed Zuko to propose. She was also aware of the tenuous relationship the Water Tribes had with the Fire Nation. Theirs was a hard-earned peace with shockwaves her people were still recovering from. Of this Zuko was well aware and so he ignored any desires he had to settle down with Katara.

Despite the relative calm they found in their dance, Katara fell sick shortly after her twenty-fifth birthday. The sickness lasted several months, causing concern to arise among her family members. She was lying in bed one morning with a dizzy spell when she realized that she hadn’t had her period in weeks. She shot up in bed and stumbled to her feet. Before this thought had come to mind, she reasoned that all the travel she’d done in the past few years was finally catching up to her. But as she stood in front of her mirror, bending water over her lower belly, she recognized the possibility of something much more serious.

The water glowed as she moved her hands to different areas of her abdomen. Her heart raced as she checked herself, unsure of whether she wanted to find something or not. But as her heartbeat mellowed, she sensed a pulse below her belly button. A small, weak heart beating in time to her own.

The first person she told was Suki, who was spending the month with Sokka in their igloo. During lunch, Katara pulled Suki aside to tell her the news. She ordered that Suki not celebrate or congratulate her because she wasn’t sure of what to do. Suki suggested they speak to Gran-Gran, which they did.

Gran-Gran took the news with a straight face, to Katara’s surprise. “Aren’t you excited for a great-grandchild?” she asked.

Gran-Gran, who was stirring a pot of stewed sea prunes at the time, simply stated, “You sound like you don’t want the baby.” She looked to Katara. “Do you?”

Suki and Katara exchanged a glance.

Katara never gave her grandmother a clear answer, but she asked for the tea Gran-Gran offered to make. As she waited for the water to boil, her mind was deep in thought. She was doing the right thing. Her relationship with Zuko was complicated enough as it were. It was frowned upon by the few who knew. Why bring a child into the situation? They aren’t even married. Katara watched her grandmother pour hot water over the papoose root and bitter melon tea. But she had been wanting to start a family with Zuko for a while now. The possibility rang in her mind when he had first called her his wife. He’d always treated her as such.

Gran-Gran handed the teacup to Katara unceremoniously. “Here.” When Katara took the cup, she continued. “Chew on the bitter melon rind after you finish drinking.”

Katara stared at the floating bits in the cup. “Will it… _take effect_ immediately?”

Gran-Gran sat on a chair next to Katara. “No. You have to take the tea twice a day for two weeks for something to happen.” She watched Katara stare at the cup for a moment longer before taking a sip.

Katara winced at the taste. It was nasty. If it weren’t already killing something within her body, she would have thought her grandmother had just given her literal poison. She held the drink up her lips again. She felt her grandmother studying her intensely. “Yes, Gran-Gran?”

Her grandmother leaned back in her chair. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that since the tea takes two weeks to work, there might be something you’d want to do in that time… someone you’d want to tell.” She stood up and ran her hands down her parka. “But it’s just a thought.”

Katara finished the cup, chewing on the melon rind as she watched her grandmother leave the igloo.

She had considered telling Zuko when she’d first examined herself, but the thought always proved to be difficult. It would take him days to come out to see her, maybe weeks. By that time, it’d be too late to change her mind; the tea would have taken its effect. It’s not like his approval would have been the deciding factor, either. There were too many moving parts to the problem. Where would the child be raised? Would she have to move to the Fire Nation? Did it mean that she and Zuko would have to become public with their relationship? And if they suddenly became public, rumors would spread that they only became a couple because she was pregnant. All unfavorable options. The rind caused her mouth to get dry and she spit it back into the cup. She was doing the right thing.

On the third day of taking the tea, Katara’s stomach turned worse than it had before. She could barely hold down a meal, spending all day vomiting. Gran-Gran told her that this was the tea working through her body. The worst of it was yet to come. This made Katara reconsider her decision.

She sat down with Suki beside the fireplace in her igloo. “This isn’t even the worst of it!” Katara said.

Suki nodded as she listened.

“It makes me feel like this isn’t worth the trouble.” Katara slumped in her place on the wolf-bear rug.

“Sounds like you want the baby,” Suki observed.

Katara perked up. “What?”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re determined to see this through. If you’re questioning whether you should continue taking it, maybe you didn’t really want to in the first place.”

Katara’s head immediately filled with the list of cons she had made earlier. “But bringing a half Water Tribe, half Fire Nation baby into the world would be a mess!”

“Bringing any child into the world is a mess,” Suki explained. “We just ended a war. Some don’t think we should bring children into a broken and scarred world. Some thought they shouldn’t have kids during the war that scarred the world. But they still did, and they still do.”

Katara thought about Suki’s words. Suki placed a hand on her thigh.

“Don’t worry about what the world wants. Worry about what you want.”

Katara sighed. If she was being honest with herself, she wanted nothing more than to raise a family with the love of her life and she knew he felt the same way. But she couldn’t help the constraints of duty and tradition from weighing down on her. After all, duty was the reason she spent most of her time away from him, and he from her. Maybe she could allow herself the one thing she wanted more than anything else. She looked into Suki’s eyes. “I want this baby.”

* * *

Katara broke this new news to Gran-Gran the next day. Her grandmother’s reaction was still stoic, but she punctuated her words with a hug and a smile.

She wrote to Zuko, telling him to expect her in the next few days. Her journey to the Fire Nation was fast, as she manipulated the waves to bring her to her common-law husband as fast as they could.

To Katara’s surprise, the news of her pregnancy made Zuko cry. She’d never seen him break down before, ever. He always kept himself composed, especially as he grew into his title of Fire Lord. But that day, Katara witnessed him rest his head on her shoulder, hiding his face as his body shook with emotion.

She pulled his head up to meet her eyes, framing his face with her hands. She wiped away his tears. “I love you.”

He was too weak for words and instead kissed her hands, taking them in his before sinking back down to her shoulder.

Katara spent the rest of that week in the palace. She shared with Zuko her concerns about raising their child, but he told her worry about the most imminent problem: her prenatal health.

She rolled her eyes. “We have to make some kind of arrangements! This child will be your heir!”

That truth seemed to shake Zuko from his blissful stupor. “You don’t think anything would happen to the child, do you?”

“No. But you see how your dignitaries treat me. They’d do the same to a half Water Tribe baby. The child needs security.”

Zuko thought about Katara’s concern. If the ministers truly wanted to, they could contest the child’s birthright due to being born out of wedlock. The solution was clear; he barely hesitated. “Marry me.”

Katara raised her eyebrows, giving him a quizzical look.

“No, I’m serious. If we’re married before the baby is born, their rights as my heir will be secured,” he elaborated. “We can get married at the South Pole. In secret. We just need the marriage papers to be official. It doesn’t matter who’s there.”

And so, they were married at the South Pole. The ceremony took place a few weeks into Katara’s second trimester, when she was beginning to show. She had started wearing multiple layers of clothes to her chamber meetings and waving off the change as weight gain. Her belly was on full display at the ceremony, which happened in her father’s igloo with her family and friends in attendance. Zuko had replaced the worn sash on her mother’s necklace and regifted it to her as her own engagement necklace. Traditionally, Water Tribe men had no ornamentation to signify their marital status, but Zuko requested some kind of reminder, a talisman of his wife to take everywhere. Sokka suggested a whale bone ring with the same insignia that was carved into Katara’s necklace. After the ring and the necklace were conferred, they held a feast to celebrate their union and the imminent arrival of their baby.

During the third trimester, Katara and Zuko agreed that she should stay out of sight until she gave birth. Her belly was too big to hide behind layers, especially in the Fire Nation. Zuko cleared out his schedule for two months and went on holiday, taking Katara to a more remote area of the Fire Nation as they waited out the final weeks together. At the end of their vacation, the couple traveled back to the South Pole. Katara wanted her baby to be delivered by her grandmother.

She gave birth to a girl, healthy with pale skin and black hair, under the full moon.

* * *

Life immediately following the birth was calm and joyous. Friends traveled to the South Pole to see the baby and to spend time with Katara and Zuko. Their time together was placid; a glimpse of what life could have been if they didn’t have such immense responsibilities.

The baby rarely cried; she was a silent observer of the world. She didn’t have a name; her parents didn’t know whether to give her a Fire Nation one or a Water Tribe one. Her eyes, out of the womb, were black. So, they chose to wait until her eyes had taken their final color to decide. She had a ravenous hunger and put on weight fast, much to everyone’s delight. When she wasn’t at Katara’s breast, Zuko held her. He couldn’t get enough of the girl.

In order to spend as much time as he could in the South Pole, Zuko had his dignitaries send him any important updates and papers that needed his signature. He was able to spend one month this way before duty pulled him back to the Fire Nation.

After leaving, he tried to visit as often as he could, his heart aching whenever he had to be away from Katara and their daughter. After weeks of back and forth, he suggested that Katara stay a few weeks in the Fire Nation, to which she agreed.

Azula was the first to take the baby once Katara arrived at the palace. She was only one who hadn’t stayed with the couple when they were in the South Pole and had been dying to see the child ever since.

The baby took to Azula immediately, grabbing at her aunt with tiny hands and staring at her with large amber eyes. Amber. Azula looked to Katara, who looked back. “Have you told Zuko?”

Katara sighed. She tickled the baby’s chest with her forefinger and cooed. “Yes. Say hello to little baby Ursa!”

Azula wrinkled her nose. “Why that name?”

Katara shrugged. “If she had blue eyes, we would have named her Kya.”

“Why name a child after people who aren’t here?” said Azula. She held the baby up in her arms. “Ursa is a terrible name. What does it say about her future?”

Katara crossed her arms. “Excuse me?”

“Your mother died protecting you, a noble cause. She must have been a good mother. Mine … wasn’t the same. The girl needs a name of her own. Her own destiny.” Azula cradled the baby in her arms again. She stared at the baby’s amber eyes as they stared back at her.

Katara watched Azula stare at her child, bewildered. “What––”

“Izumi,” was all Azula said. She rocked the baby in her arms for a few moments longer before giving her back to Katara.

Katara watched as her sister-in-law walked down the hallway and disappeared behind a pair of double doors. She looked to her baby. “Izumi?”

She found Zuko a few hours later and suggested the name to him. “What does it mean?”

Zuko took the child from her hands. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it earlier. A word for a body of water. Something that brings life and is reminiscent of half of who she is. “Spring.”

* * *

Unbeknownst to her, the first year of Izumi’s life was chaotic. Most of her time was spent on ships to the Fire Nation from the South Pole and to the South Pole from the Fire Nation. She never spent more than a few weeks in any one location but passed most of her time in her mother’s care. Anywhere her mother was, she went. Katara was her personal escort. Her mother’s career suffered as a result. She couldn’t keep her seat on the Preservation Council while being constantly absent with no explanation.

The days she had to be in the council chambers, she left Izumi with Gran-Gran. But her grandmother was becoming too old to look after an infant. She wrote a letter to Zuko, asking him to take Izumi to the Fire Nation for a while.

When he arrived, the two argued over the care of their one-year old child.

“Do you think the palace is a daycare?” Zuko shouted.

“No! But I know that you have a palace filled with attendants that can handle one baby while I have to ask my grandmother to watch her when I can’t!” Katara countered.

“So, I should walk up to my waitstaff with a child and just tell them to take care of her? Like that won’t immediately let them know that I was hiding a daughter from them?”

“No––I don’t know! And I don’t care! I can’t take care of our daughter by myself!”

Azula was in the next room over, listening to the argument through the walls of snow. She bounced Izumi in her lap. “Looks like mommy and daddy are fighting!” she cooed. She had tagged along with Zuko to see her niece, thinking the trip would be one of their usual visits. She stood, balancing Izumi on her hip, and walked in on her brother and her sister-in-law.

They stopped arguing as soon as they saw Izumi. Katara straightened herself and ran a gloved hand through her hair. Zuko cleared his throat and smoothed out his parka.

“Your baby needs a guardian,” Azula stated.

The two gave her a questioning look.

“ _You_ need some excuse to have a child running around the palace,” Azula nodded to Zuko. “And _you_ need someone to take care of the child while you work,” she nodded to Katara.

Katara crossed her arms. “If you’re suggesting that _you_ should be that guardian, the answer is no.”

Zuko and Azula gave her a look.

“I would be fine with it if the guardian was someone in the Water Tribe,” she said, throwing up her arms. “You’re asking me to just let you take my baby to the Fire Nation. I want her with me! I just need help.”

“Izumi is my baby, too, Katara. How do you think I feel?” Zuko said, trying to keep his voice level. “I’ve barely been around her for the first year of her life!”

Katara pouted. She hadn’t been considerate of Zuko’s feelings. “I’m sorry.”

“Think of it this way,” Azula cut in. “It’ll be much easier for her blend into a Fire Nation school than a Water Tribe one.” She was alluding to the fact that Izumi looked fully Fire Nation. The child even showed signs of being able to bend fire.

The only thing that suggested Izumi was even a bit Water Tribe was the slight wave to her hair. Katara knew this. Whenever Gran-Gran went out to market with Izumi in tow, they’d get stares. It would only get worse if she continued to live in the South Pole. Izumi didn’t belong here; Katara was only deceiving herself. She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself.

Zuko moved to his wife, pulling her into an embrace. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her arms. “It’ll be okay.”

Katara collapsed in his embrace, going weak in the knees and sinking to the ground. Zuko followed her down, never letting go of her. He held her as her body racked with sobs. “It’s only for a little while.” He looked to Azula, who looked back.

They both knew it wasn’t true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're only interested in the "shippy" bits, check out "In the Meantime" on ff.net! That's where I'll be posting the flashback chapters by themselves. My fanfiction account has the same name as this one.


	8. VIII.

Aang and Toph weren’t surprised to hear that Izumi wanted to take a detour to visit Kyoshi Island. In fact, they both thought it was a good idea. They prepared Izumi for her trip by packing her enough food for the day’s journey. Aang instructed her to ride the Eastern Winds to cut her travel time in half.

“Land in the nighttime,” he advised. “You’ll need rest and a clear mind.”

“Suki should be there this time of year,” Toph said, rubbing her chin. “She lives on the south end of the island, near the beach.”

Izumi nodded as she organized the baskets of food she was given in the balloon’s carriage.

It was the late morning of the next day. The sun was almost overhead. This leg of her journey had a later start than the first, due to Aang’s suggestion. He said that starting later in the day would allow her to touchdown after sunset. Izumi brought up the question of the heat due to the high noon sun, but Aang waved it off, saying that he travelled at high noon all the time with little difficulty.

“The only place I’d use caution is over the desert, but you’re not heading that way,” he said.

Izumi boarded the carriage, giving Toph a tight hug before closing the door. “Make sure you eat plenty!” she warned.

Tenzin and Bumi were standing next to their father. “Tell Kya we said hi!” Bumi called. Tenzin simply waved.

Izumi took off. The ride was smooth, with the Eastern Winds being surprisingly calm. After Izumi ate the tin of rice Toph had packed for her, she started to feel sleepy. The Winds rocked her like a baby, and she fell asleep with the sun still high overhead. When she woke up, the sky was significantly darker; the pinkish stripes of sunset streaked through the clouds.

Alarmed, she used the scant sunlight to check her map, glancing back and forth from the map to the ground below. She was certainly over Kyoshi Island but wasn’t sure where. Scanning the map a few moments longer, she realized she was skirting past the island’s south edge. She needed to lose altitude fast.

She opened the balloon’s engine hatch and held a hand over the flame, making it smaller. The balloon started a controlled descent, but it was too slow for Izumi’s liking. She wasn’t sure which strip of the beach belonged to her aunt and uncle, but she wanted to land before she reached the mountainous area. She had two options: either land in the mountains and retread or crash onto the beach.

Izumi squeezed her eyes shut in thought before snapping them open again. She cut the engine’s flame. Instead of a controlled descent, the balloon fell out of the sky. In that moment, she wished she were an airbender and could control where the balloon fell.

Below, Sokka exited the barn that sat on the property he shared with his wife Suki. They only had one large eel hound, Taro, that stayed in the barn, but they both agreed that he should live in style. After the battle on Sozin’s Comet, Sokka decided they needed an eel hound of their own. They adopted two and became eel hound breeders in the process, selling the ones they didn’t keep. Taro was the great-grandchild of the first ones they owned.

Kya had taken Taro with her on a camping trip in the mountains. Sokka took the opportunity to clean the barn, laying down fresh hay and feed for Taro to enjoy when he came back.

As he walked along the path back to his house, he stopped to admire the moon, as he did most nights. Something else in the evening sky caught his attention. Something skirting across the sky like a comet. Was it a comet? Probably not since it was headed directly towards him.

Izumi held onto the edge of the carriage for dear life. She willed herself to keep her eyes open, eyeing the land as it quickly approached. Once she figured she was at a reasonable distance from the ground, she steeled herself, using the heel of her hand to send a large gust of fire into the engine hatch.

The balloon’s envelope opened with a loud pop, almost bursting at the seams. Izumi shut her eyes tightly, genuinely afraid that the envelope had ripped. Instead, she felt herself being forced downward as the carriage was pulled up, knocking her off her feet. The balloon floated up with the force of the flame but started to drift lower as the flame died down.

Izumi peeked over the edge of the carriage. She was close enough to the ground to see Sokka’s shocked face. She stood and waved to him, laughing wildly. It was a reckless decision, but she had gotten the result she wanted.

Sokka, knobby-kneed and frightened, waved back.

* * *

Suki removed the cloth cover on one of the baskets Izumi was given, finding fresh fruit and bread loaves underneath. “Who gave you these?” she asked, taking a roll.

“Toph.” Izumi was in her aunt and uncle’s kitchen. In her arms was another basket of food and atop it was her bag of clothes. The kitchen was quaint, for lack of a better word. There was a kamado against the wall, framed by bamboo tables that were probably used for food preparation. The kitchen was separate from the main house so as to keep the house from getting hot when cooking. It had a dirt floor.

Feeling of the dirt beneath her shoes was strange and slightly unsettling. She had spent a few summers in Kyoshi as a girl but didn’t remember the relative poverty of the country people that lived there. Well, maybe they weren’t poor. But she didn’t know that houses could have floors made of dirt, having grown up in a palace, and all.

“Who knew Toph could bake?” Sokka added, taking a plump apple from the basket.

“She probably didn’t make them herself. Aang was there, too.”

Suki took the second basket of food from Izumi’s hands, gesturing for her niece to take bag that sat on top of it. She set the basket on a table. Suki could tell her niece was uncomfortable by the face she was making. “Don’t worry. The main house isn’t this homely.”

Izumi bristled, suddenly feeling called out. “This place isn’t homely! It’s…it’s…” She blanked. Homely was the exact word she would have used.

Suki laughed. “It’s okay. I know this place isn’t your style. But you’ll like the house better.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It has wood floors.”

Izumi smiled sheepishly, holding in a breath. She didn’t want to reveal her frivolousness by sighing in relief at the knowledge that she wouldn’t be sleeping on a dirt floor.

The trio walked to the main house, which stood on a stilted foundation. To Izumi’s surprise, both the walls _and_ the floor were made of wood. It seemed to be of a lightly smoked reed, something bamboo-like, and the furniture was made of the same material. Suki led her upstairs to a free bedroom. The room had a futon in the corner, a large lantern, a doll-sized jade figure of Kyoshi, and nothing else.

“Sorry this room isn’t very decorated,” Suki said, stooping to light the lantern with the candle she held. “The place has been sitting empty since the kids moved out.”

Izumi nodded but said nothing. She had already assumed so. Her aunt and uncle had three children, but they rarely came home to visit if she recalled her aunt’s letters correctly. She sat her bag down on the bed.

After landing on the beach, Izumi explained to Sokka the reason she came to visit. He told her that Kya had gone camping but was expected back at their house sometime in the afternoon tomorrow. He also told her that she had great timing, not just with the balloon, but also with Kya as she was very hard to track down. The two walked to the kitchen, where they met Suki and explained the situation to her. She was more than delighted to host the sisters when they finally meet.

Now, the three of them sat at the low table in the middle of the dining room. Suki had set out the dinner she’d been preparing when Izumi had touched down on the beach. Conversation was scarce since it was Izumi’s first time visiting in a while. When the meal was finished, Suki took their plates and replaced the dish at the center of the table with the fruit basket Izumi had brought. She also had a book under her arm.

“I thought you might need some background on Kya before you meet her,” she said. She laid the book in front of Izumi and opened its cover. The first page she flipped to had a painting of their family. Sokka, Suki, two boys, and two girls. Suki pointed to the smallest of the girls. “That’s her. Doesn’t she just blend in? You’d think she was ours.”

“She _is_ ours,” Sokka clarified, leaning over to glance at the painting. “Just not our daughter.”

Izumi stared at the page. While she grew up alone in the palace, Kya lived here with three siblings of her very own. Granted, they were her cousins, but she couldn’t help feeling a bit jealous. Her sister never had to go far for a playdate. “She was the youngest?”

“Yes. Everyone else was out of diapers when your mother approached us with her,” Suki said.

“How did that conversation go? ‘Brother, sister-in-law. Here’s my baby. Look after her.’” Izumi made her voice deep when imitating Katara.

Sokka laughed. “Not quite. Azula had been your guardian for several years by then. We already knew the deal.”

Izumi flipped to another page in the book. “Have I met her before?”

“You met her when she was born; you were five,” Suki said. “I think you played with her a few times during the solstice festivals.” She looked to her husband for confirmation.

Sokka nodded. “But you two weren’t particularly close.” He thought for a moment before adding, “She was at the funeral, too.”

Izumi frowned. The thought of at least having met her sister, but not remembering it irritated her. Kya was even at the funeral. But Izumi couldn’t think of anyone who looked like the little girl in the painting. She began to flip through the book. The next few pages were paintings of the land her aunt and uncle owned, along with some of their eel hounds. Names were scrawled in small characters underneath; Tofu, Lotus Root, Apay, Cassava, Natong, and Taro. She stopped on a spread that had a more recent painting of the family.

Suki pointed to the woman on the far left of the painting. “That’s her,” she said proudly.

Izumi’s eyes took in the portrait. The paint was more vibrant than the first image due to its newness. She could see the dark hair clearly, how it was darker than that of the other adult children. She also saw how Kya’s face was slightly angular, favoring their father’s. She looked just like their cousins and very different from them at the same time. Izumi searched her memory for the day of Zuko’s funeral, trying to remember if she saw that face there. “I think I remember seeing Kya at the funeral with you guys.”

Sokka sat back. “Yeah. She came with us. It took a hell of a lot of convincing, though.”

Izumi raised her brow.

“She had a complicated relationship to the Fire Nation,” Suki explained. “Growing up on the Island and at the South Pole had her seeing things from the eyes of the Water Tribe. She thought of herself as a warrior, like our kids.”

“Hating the Fire Nation was the rebellious thing,” Sokka said with a low chuckle. He nudged Suki. “Remember when the kids wanted to make a New Kyoshi Order?”

Suki smiled. “They thought they were making next Dai Li!” She shook her head. “Of course, we had to remind them that we fought to end the war so they _wouldn’t_ have to become child soldiers like we did.”

Izumi listened to her aunt and uncle go on about the rebellious ways of Water Tribe and Islander children, how they wanted to be like their parents that fought in the war. They laughed it all off. At the end of the day, they had to teach their children that the fighting was done, and they were left with the fixing. Izumi learned the story from the opposite side. Much of the Fire Nation was still staunchly unapologetic and wanted to go to war for what they thought was theirs. Here, even children were ready to take up arms to defend what they had salvaged from invaders. And she belonged to those invaders.

Sokka and Suki were in tears laughing by the time Izumi waded back up from the depths of her thoughts.

Her uncle wiped away a tear. “… But yeah. It was hard on Kya because she had a lot of anger towards the Fire Nation without knowing she was not only Fire Nation, but Fire Nation _royalty_.”

Suki took a deep sigh, returning herself to the seriousness of the topic. “We had to tell her the truth earlier than we were supposed to. She couldn’t go on hating half of herself.”

“How old was she when you told her?”

“Twenty,” Suki said.

“How old is she now?”

“Twenty-three,” Sokka said. “She felt guilty about all the years she spent angry at the Fire Nation. She didn’t even want to show her face at the funeral.”

“Was she ever close to Zuko?”

“Um…” Suki looked to Sokka. “She knew he was a friend of ours and liked him. During her teenage years, she referred to him as ‘one of the good ones.’”

“I think it didn’t suit her rebellion to be family friends with highest in the Fire Nation chain of command,” Sokka said, crossing his arms.

“That’s sad,” was all Izumi could muster.

“Don’t feel bad!” It was Suki who spoke. “She became very close to him in those last few years. They always wrote a lot; she visited him, too.”

Izumi thought about her relationship with Katara. Knowing they were mother and daughter would have made their interactions more poignant, but they’d been close all her life. She never spent a moment hating her, or the Water Tribe. She wondered how those last few weeks were like for Kya, watching their father gasp for breath while knowing she spent most of her life estranged from him. She became sad. “Sometimes it feels like our parents did more harm than good.”

“I know it feels that way,” Sokka began, “but they wanted you to live lives that were as normal as they could provide. Keeping you two separate meant that wouldn’t be treated poorly for looking out of place. Knowing that allowed Kya to find some peace with the situation.”

Izumi’s ears pricked up at the words “knowing” and “you two.” “Did she know about me?”

Sokka and Suki nodded.

“She knew that I was her sister? Since she was twenty?”

They nodded again.

All the sadness Izumi felt was drained from her body and was replaced with annoyance, which was replaced with ire. She had known? For three years? And never even sent a letter? Izumi snapped her head away from her aunt and uncle and stared at the flame that flickered in the paper lantern on the table.

Suki sensed her niece’s shift in mood. “You can’t hold this against her. Of course, she didn’t reach out. She wasn’t even supposed to know.” She rested a hand on Izumi’s shoulder.

Izumi snapped away from the touch. “I don’t care! You weren’t supposed to tell, but you did, didn’t you?”

Suki pressed her lips together. Sokka said nothing.

“Whatever.” Izumi excused herself from the table and walked out of the door and onto the porch.

The night air was cool and refreshing. The inside of the house wasn’t stuffy, but it’s never the same as standing in the unencumbered breeze. Izumi leaned against the porch railing and glanced up at the moon. It was near full. She remembered that her family were personal friends of the moon spirit and briefly contemplated talking to her. Deciding against it, Izumi reasoned that whatever was in her heart, the moon already knew. She descended from the porch steps and onto the beach.

She was angry. Angry at her parents, angry at her godmother, angry at Kya––even though she hardly knew her. It wasn’t a burning anger more than it was sad and flickering flame; she knew she couldn’t be angry. She couldn’t be angry at her father who was now dead. She couldn’t be angry at her godmother for helping her brother. She couldn’t be angry at Sokka and Suki for doing what was best for Kya. She couldn’t be angry at Kya for not doing what she would have done. Who could she be angry at?

As warm tears rolled down Izumi’s cheeks, she realized that she wasn’t angry. She was frustrated, sad, and hopelessly lost. She sat on the sand, close to the coastline. She was despondent, distressed, and pregnant. She was alone. She buried her face in her hands.

Yue knew what was in her heart, but Izumi still felt the urge to call out to her. She clutched at her heart through her robes. She was half Water Tribe. Some part of her worshipped the moon. “Oh, Yue!” Izumi cried, looking up to the sky. “What do I do?” Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that all this emotional distress couldn’t be good for the baby. The child was going to come out wonky if she didn’t miscarry. “I don’t want anything! I just want to know what to do, how to feel…” Her voice trailed off as she sat alone, rubbing away the frustrated tears that fell, wishing she could draw them back into her eyes.

Suddenly, all noises of the night became imperceptible. The chirping of the grasshopper-crickets, the gust of the sea air, the howling of stray dogs; gone. She couldn’t hear a thing. Nothing––except the sound of the ocean.

Izumi became scared. She stopped crying and drew into herself, eyes bleary. She slapped her palms to either side of her head, covering her ears. But the ocean was still there. Crashing against the stilted foundations of docks she couldn’t even see, cresting on rocks and wearing them smooth. Smoothing over imperfections. Making the irregular, round and the rough, level. Her eyes became heavy and so did her arms as her hands fell away from her ears. The ocean called her. She found herself answering.

She didn’t notice she had pulled herself to standing until she was walking toward the coast. All ire was washed away as she put one foot in front of the other. Her anguish was salved as the tension released from her body. _Come to me_. She found herself neck deep in the water and unafraid. Her face was slack as she raised herself to float, drifting as she let the water guide.

* * *

An unknown amount of time later, when Izumi finally returned the house, Suki was in her room, seated on the futon.

She looked as if she had been waiting for quite some time, but she asked no questions. Even as Izumi walked in with her silk robes completely drenched and pooling water on the wood floors. She only gave Izumi a latched box with its top open and letters inside.

They were letters Izumi had addressed to her aunt and uncle. Mundane updates and paintings, some she had made herself. They were old. Many of the paintings were portraits of herself and Zuko. Court paintings. Copies of them, at least.

“Kya has been collecting these since she was told about your relation three years ago,” Suki said softly.

Izumi waited for her aunt to say more, but she didn’t. She simply side stepped and slid open the screen door, crossing the threshold into the hallway.

Before Suki slid the door closed, she added, “I’d understand if you left without seeing her.”

Alone in the room, Izumi noticed a note on the futon, next to where her aunt was seated. She picked it up and held it to the dim light of the lantern. _Make of this what you will_.

Maybe Suki hadn’t intended to wait up. Maybe she wanted to leave the box without comment. But Izumi wouldn’t have known they were things Kya had saved. To anyone else, it looked like a box of old letters. Because it _was_ a box of old letters. That’s what made them special. They were anything; they could have come from anybody. But they came from _her_ and that was why Kya had kept them. Izumi fished out a portrait of herself as a teenager. She smiled. Who knew what her sister had done to find it.

After changing into dry clothes, Izumi lay on the futon with the lacquered box open beside her. Her heart felt light for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. She absently fingered the latch on the box. It was in the shape of a fire emblem. _Make of this what you will._


	9. IX

Kya woke early enough to see the sun rise from behind the mountains. It was a beautiful sight. The sunrises in the Kyoshi Mountains were like none anywhere else in the world. At the sight of the sun’s rays pinkening the sky, Kya breathed deeply. She may not have an inner fire with the strength of her father’s, but she felt it stoke all the same. It was a warm feeling that filled her chest, made her feel as though she could do anything.

She stood, kicking the ashes of last night’s fire. She had already packed her tent and bedroll. Taro still lay on the dewy grass, fast asleep.

She patted his haunches, walking up to his head. “Wake up, sleepyhead!” Once she reached his large head, she gathered him into her arms and nuzzled his snout.

The beast groaned. The noise rattled through Kya’s bones, a familiar sensation. She smiled against his scales. “You can go back to sleep when we get to the barn, okay?”

Taro rumbled again in acquiescence. He raised his head out of Kya’s grasp and righted himself for mounting.

“Atta boy,” she said as she climbed onto his back.

* * *

The sun was barely over the mountains when Izumi’s inner fire roused her awake. Her eyes opened, focusing on the box before her. Kya’s box. She smiled and outstretched a hand, running her finger on its lacquered cherry wood. She had decided to stay.

Izumi rolled onto her haunches before shifting off the futon. Her robes lay in a corner of the room, still damp from the night before. She sighed, gathering the clothes in her arms. Sliding open the screen door, she slipped out of her room and tiptoed down the steps. It was still very early in the morning; Suki and Sokka were asleep in their room. She made sure not to wake them on her way out of the house.

There was a small courtyard between the main house, kitchen, and barn. This area had a few clotheslines in parallel rows. Izumi imagined a time when the lines were constantly full of children’s clothing, when Kya and their cousins ran between sheets that billowed in the wind, pretending they were the masts of ships. She smiled.

Morning dew caught on the poles that held the lines upright. Her clothes wouldn’t be dry until the sun was fully risen. Better to start now.

Izumi set the clothes on a stool beside her and straightened the largest garment, holding it up to the light. It was heavy with water. She brought the fabric to her nose; it still had the scent of the ocean. She briefly considered washing her clothes but realized she didn’t care enough to do so. They were only soaked, not stained. She gathered the arm of the robe and squeezed, wringing out droplets of water. Moving to the next sleeve, then bit by bit of its length, Izumi wrung the robe until she figured it was reasonably dry. The garment certainly weighed less than it did when she first picked it up. Lifting the cloth to the clothesline, she tossed it over the twine and clipped it in place.

As Izumi stooped to gather the next garment in her hands, she noticed someone approaching the barn. Not some _one_ , some _thing_. A large, dark green beast walking on four legs: two powerful front legs and two muscular, curving hind legs. An eel hound, one of Sokka and Suki. It had been forever since she’d seen one up close. She had forgotten just how big they were. Next to the creature was its handler, a woman who was easily dwarfed by the thing. She held its reigns loosely, like there wasn’t a possibility the beast could drag her away without meaning to. A strange sight.

* * *

Kya rubbed Taro’s snout. “We’re almost there, buddy. You did such a good job today!”

He grunted in response, snorting out a gust of air.

She giggled. Taro was easily the strongest of her aunt and uncle’s eel hounds, but he was also the laziest. His knack for climbing and bounding and swimming was discovered when he was just a few months old. He was showered in treats and affection for his talent, which led to him becoming spoiled. Any command was met with annoyance until he was properly coaxed into doing it. Kya had always known him to be this way and didn’t mind.

While walking, Kya spotted a woman in the courtyard, hanging clothes on the drying lines. She wore a plain linen dress; her hair was tied back loosely. Kya was too far away to tell who exactly the woman was, but she could tell it wasn’t Suki. Her hair was too dark, her body too slender. She had to be a guest. A random person wouldn’t hang their laundry in someone else’s courtyard, would they?

From the clothesline hung robes in various shades of red and gold. Fire Nation clothing. Even from where she stood, Kya could tell the robes were expensive. They caught the light in the way only silk could. A woman with a slender frame and dark hair, who was rich and from the Fire Nation, and also happened to know her aunt and uncle well enough to hang her clothes in their yard. Kya stared at the woman, who had stopped hanging her clothes and stared back. There was only one person she could think of that fit that bill. Izumi.

Kya turned away from the woman’s gaze, hiding the side of her face with her hand. It couldn’t be. She quickly tugged Taro along, slipping behind the large barn doors. Her mind ran over the list of people she knew, trying to convince herself that it wasn’t her estranged older sister she had just seen drying clothes so casually in the yard of her childhood home.

Her blood ran cold. All her life, she never thought she would meet her older sister in the flesh. For some reason or another, the possibility had never occurred to her. They were always kept in different social circles as kids; the few memories she had of Izumi were faint and worn like the photos she kept in her box.

Taro had lumbered over to right corner of the barn, his favorite spot, and lain down, resting his head between his forelegs. Kya moved to his side, plopping down on the floor beside him and resting her head on his belly. She whispered sharply, “What the hell!”

Taro raised his head, turning to look at her.

“No, not you.” Kya waved him off and he returned to his rest.

She raised a hand, bunching it in her hair, which was tied up into a loose ponytail. She wore a short Water Tribe parka to ward off the morning chill, but the coat was dewy and sweat-stained. Nothing to receive a most coveted relative in. Her breaths were shallow; she was nervous but didn’t know why. She wasn’t even sure if it were Izumi that she saw in the yard. Maybe it was a spirit?

Kya heard the barn doors creak before she saw them open. A figure, blacked out by the sun behind it, crept into the open frame. “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.

Not a spirit. A spirit would have phased through the doors.

Kya wanted to hide, but she was facing the entrance. If she tried to move now, she’d be caught in the act. Did she even want to hide? All she knew was that she didn’t want to be found. Not now. Not like this.

Grasping some straw that lay under her fingers, Kya stood. She turned away from the door and to Taro, pretending to feed it to him. He stirred a bit and opened one eye. He opened his mouth, passively accepting the food.

She heard footfall and felt sweat falling from her hairline down the side of her face.

“Excuse me?” The voice was light and pleasant, singsong-like. Kya could hear the Fire Nation accent on the stranger’s tongue. She could know that lilt anywhere. It was like her father’s; a sound she had ingrained in her heart.

She busied herself gathering more hay from the ground around her, pretending not to hear. Surprisingly, the floor was very clean. Sokka must have swept the whole barn while she was away.

The footfall grew closer. The stranger would not be deterred.

Kya stacked straw in her arms high enough to cover her face. She couldn’t see where she was going, but that meant that whoever-it-was couldn’t see her either. She stepped forward, hoping to find Taro’s snout, but her foot found his drool instead. Of course, it did. Taro had already fallen asleep.

She landed awkwardly on the wet spot, causing her to lose her balance, stumble, and fall onto the puddle of eel hound saliva, hay flying everywhere.

In the flurry of yellow hay, Kya saw her. Izumi. She was looking up at the airborne hay with a hand over her mouth in shock. The white dress she wore was deceptively plain. Linens like that were expensive because of the bleaching and fine thread-spinning required to make it, no matter how simple they appeared. Her skin was pale and her hair black, just like in the portraits, only her skin had the flush of morning frost. Her cheeks were bitten pink and so were the tips of her fingers and her knuckles, probably from handling wet clothes. Kya could tell her hair was long from the way it hung heavily in its loose bun, sagging against the base of her neck.

And then she laughed. A silky, throaty laugh that wasn’t unlike her mother’s. She shook her head. As if to say, “What are we going to do with you?” In the midst of her laughter, she looked down, flashing Kya a smile, white teeth and golden eyes. Golden like her father’s. Their father’s. She held out a hand. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Kya blushed. Izumi was beautiful, just like in the paintings. But so much more real. She took her sister’s hand.

Once Kya was on her feet, her sister began to speak. “My name is Izumi,” she said gesturing to herself. “I’m staying with Suki and Sokka.” She held out her hand again and Kya took it, this time shaking, a greeting usually used for family and friends. “You’re Kya,” she stated. Peering over at the sleeping eel hound she said, “That must be Taro.”

Kya said nothing; she only blinked. It was surreal. Izumi already knew so much about her.

“Sokka told me you two went on a camping trip. I don’t think any of us expected you so early,” Izumi said through an enduring smile. It looked almost painful.

Kya was unnerved. Even though she thought their meeting would never happen, she surely didn’t imagine it going like this; backed into a corner, Izumi knowing everything. “Yeah…” was all she could muster.

Izumi sensed Kya’s nervousness and shrank back a little. “I’ll leave you to what you were doing,” she said, stepping back and bowing before leaving the barn.

As soon as Izumi left the barn, Kya let out a sigh, shaking the nervousness from her body. She stooped to run a hand over Taro’s snout. He was still fast asleep.

“That was weird,” she said to him.

* * *

Izumi rubbed her arm and looked up to the mountains. The sun had risen slightly higher from where it was. Its light shined on her face, bringing warmth to her cheeks. She had botched that meeting. It felt so utterly awkward. She started for her clothes that still lay on the stool by the clotheslines.

She hung her robes with a new vigor, provoked by her annoyance at herself. She snapped pins at cloth like they were sharks. She should have let Kya come to her. Or let Suki tell Kya that she was there. It was too much, too soon. What did she expect to happen? They would introduce themselves and become best friends? In her haste, Izumi caught a finger in the mouth of a clothespin. She cried out in pain, cursing the wooden pin and throwing it to the ground. It broke upon hitting the cobblestone terrace. She sighed, picking up the pieces. They already knew of each other before meeting, so it was doomed from the start. It would always be weird. The playing fields weren’t level.

Izumi stood back from the line, admiring the view of the red and gold silks, illuminated by the sun. She rubbed her arms again, warding off the morning chill. Her sister was twenty-three. She was twenty-eight. It wasn’t a huge difference, but they were already in different stages of their lives. She was married and pregnant while Kya was neither. Izumi had no desire to be motherly and imposing, as she had been already, but she had no idea how to be a sister.

When Izumi returned to the house, Suki was already up. She sat in one of the bamboo chairs in the parlor. She looked to Izumi expectantly as she crossed the threshold. Suki had a pot of tea next to her and two cups, one of which had steam rising from it. The set up was probably for her to enjoy with Sokka, but Izumi couldn’t help feeling it was for her.

A disarmed smile spread on her face. It had been many years since she’d been this casual with her aunt, but the words came naturally. “I saw Kya in the barn.”

Suki perked up. “You did?”

Izumi nodded, taking the seat next to her aunt. Almost reflexively, Suki poured the tea. “I kind of screwed it up.”

Suki shook her head playfully, saying nothing.

Izumi took the cup, bowing her head in thanks. She spoke before taking a sip. “I just went up to her and was like ‘Hi I’m Izumi, let me tell you all the things I know about you despite the fact that we’ve never met!’” She shook her head. “I’m still reeling from the embarrassment. Like, did that even happen?”

Suki snickered. She sipped her tea.

Izumi waited. “Aren’t you gonna say something?”

Suki laughed again. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know!” She gestured vaguely. “Offer some sage advice?”

Her aunt shook her head with only a smile on her face. “I’ve never had a long-lost sister. I don’t have sisters at all! The only thing I can do for you is listen.”

“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

Suki shrugged. “I think it’s good that you two broke the ice. The awkward part is done. Imagine how it would have gone if you met her over breakfast.”

Izumi imagined a much more formal meeting, with bows and exchanged pleasantries. Her aunt and uncle introducing them to each other. She winced. “I don’t know which is better.”

“I think you’re only saying that because you had to do it yourself,” Suki teased.

Izumi smiled and rolled her eyes.

Suki finished her cup and set it down, rising from her chair. “Come on, let’s start breakfast. Talking is always easier on a full stomach.”

* * *

Kya walked into the kitchen, surprised to find Sokka standing over the kamado. He stooped to add wood to the oven. She stepped up to him. “Breakfast duty?”

Sokka’s head snapped up at the sound of her voice. He stood. “Kya!” He wrapped his arms around her small frame. “We weren’t expecting you ‘til lunch!”

As usual, her uncle measured time by the meals of the day. She laughed against his chest, bringing her arms to hug his waist.

He pulled back. “How were those mountains?”

“Beautiful. Unchanging.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That sunrise?”

She smiled. “Different every time.”

Sokka clapped a hand on her shoulder. “You know I missed you?”

“It was barely a week.”

He drew her into him, draping his arm over her. “When you’re supposed to be spending the month with us? Every moment away from the nest is agony for poor papa bird,” he said, laying a hand on his chest, his mouth downturned in an exaggerated frown. Sokka would never admit it to his other kids, but Kya was easily his favorite child.

Kya rolled her eyes and pounded a fist to his chest. She almost said the word that was on her tongue in the playful, admonishing tone she’d given him so many times before. Instead, she shook her head and pressed a smile to her lips. She had stopped calling him ‘dad’ three years ago, but sometimes she still got the urge. “Izumi was in the courtyard. I met her when I was taking Taro to the barn.”

“How’d it go?”

She made a face.

“Oh, no!” Sokka chuckled. He squeezed her shoulders. “Come on, let’s walk.”

They walked out to the courtyard, circling the clotheslines, rounding the barn, stopping inside to see Taro, and ended up at the beach, talking all the while. Kya explained her encounter with Izumi, her nervousness, how strange it was to see someone who had consumed her thoughts for the better half of the past three years. They sat at the edge of the coast, letting the ocean lap at their feet.

“I saw so much of my father in her. Especially her eyes. They were just like his.” Kya sat quiet for a while, watching the push and pull of the ocean. “I saw some of Mom in her, too.” She smiled. “She laughs just like Mom does.”

Sokka smiled, too, remembering his sister’s laugh.

Kya folded in on herself, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her head on her knees. “I don’t want to share Dad, his memory. She’s had him all her life. I only had him for three years. I don’t want to see his face in hers. I want my memories of him to be just of him.”

“You had him all your life, too, Kya. You know that,” he said firmly.

Kya squeezed her toes, catching wet sand between them. “No, I didn’t.” She sniffled, feeling the sting that preceded tears. She turned away from her uncle. Talking about her father was always difficult.

“Izumi being in your life won’t erase your memories of Zuko.”

“But making new ones won’t bring him back.” She sniffled wetly.

Sokka rubbed a hand on his niece’s back. “What’s your favorite memory of him?”

Kya rested her cheek on her knees. “It’s kind of morbid, but when he was bedridden, we played a game of Pai Sho. Every game felt like the last, but this one wasn’t the last. He was impressed with how good I’d gotten, and I told him that I wasn’t going to go easy on him just because he was dying.”

Sokka raised his eyebrows. “That’s a new one.”

“I feel like I keep finding new things to cherish.”

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the crashing waves.

“Why did you buy this land?” Kya asked. She’s heard the story before but whenever the memory gets fuzzy, Sokka retells it. Each time is different from the last.

He scratched the scruff on his chin. “We were looking for a place to raise children. Your aunt wanted to be close to her family, I wanted to be close to mine. Kyoshi Islanders are Earth Kingdom, but they know a lot about the ways of the water since they’re on an island. If we lived on the beach, we’d never be more than a few days away from the South Pole, which allowed me to teach the boys how to steer a ship, how to fish. Relatives from both sides could visit any time and we could host so many friends on this big piece of land. It was perfect.”

Kya frowned. This wasn’t the story she was hoping for. Where was the haggling? The stingy property owners? How they fought for this perfect view of the ocean? How they mapped the fastest route to the South Pole from this very spot? How Sokka built the barn and the house and the kitchen? Where was the adventure? “That’s not the whole story.”

He shrugged. “But it’s everything you need to know. The useful stuff. The real reasons. I don’t think I’ve told you them before.”

“Because they’re boring.”

Sokka smiled. “Was playing Pai Sho with a dying man boring?”

Kya couldn’t help the small grin that touched the corners of her mouth. “With any other dying man, yes it would be.”

He clapped a hand to his heart. “You’re saying that if it were _me_ on that bed, it would have been boring?”

She lifted her head to turn her nose up at him. “That’s exactly what I’m saying––” _Dad_. Kya quickly averted her gaze to the ocean. Her voice lost its playful tone. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Sokka watched his niece turn away from him, knowing why she had cut herself off. He was adjusting to the change of being demoted from ‘dad’ to ‘uncle,’ too. For a while, she tried using his name, but he liked that even less. He followed her gaze out to the ocean.

They were quiet again.

“You know… There was another house. Before this one.”

Kya looked to her uncle. She had never heard this story before.

Sokka nodded his head. “Yup. Right at the mouth of the peninsula where Kyoshi herself cut the island from the Earth Kingdom.”

Her mouth opened in awe.

“The house was big, beautiful. It was on a cliffside. Had the perfect view of the ocean below and the mountains above. And the sunrises were like none other.” He elbowed to his niece. “They even rivaled your mountain sunrises. Imagine those every day.” The stretched his arms to simulate a horizon line. “Sunsets, too.”

Kya imagined seeing the beautiful Kyoshi Mountains sunrises from the comfort of her bed. She smiled. “What happened to it?”

“We bought it, of course.”

Her eyes went wide. “What?! Where is it?”

“Nature had its way,” Sokka said. “A tsunami came and while we were safe from the crashing waves, we weren’t safe from the earthquakes. The house was on stilts, just like this one.” He gestured to the house behind them. “But they weren’t strong enough to handle how hard the earth shook that day. They broke apart. Suki and I had to run out of the house before we fell down the cliff with it.”

Kya put a hand to her mouth, shocked.

“After the dust had cleared, the entire front of the house was gone, our pictures and heirlooms with it. You can’t plan for those kinds of things.” He shook his head and looked down to his hands. “We had nothing; we were homeless.”

“What––what did you do?”

Sokka let out a long sigh. He felt the memories swell in his chest. The loss, the devastation. “Suki and I moved in with your grandfather. We were depressed for a long time. There was no reason to save for a new house if it could be washed away as easily as that perfect first one. That house felt like it was made for us and if it was gone, then there was no hope for another one.”

Kya pouted. There was a lesson in this story, as gripping as it was.

“One day, when your mother was drawing up plans for an addition to the Preservation Council hall, I had an idea. I asked Suki for all the things she wanted in a house. Where she wanted to raise kids. If she wanted a porch, a backyard, all that stuff. At first, she only asked for the things we had in the old house, but she slowly started to add new things: a courtyard, a garden. I added things, too. We kept dreaming and dreaming until we came up with the plans for this house. We were going to build it ourselves.”

And they did. “But what about the tsunamis? You can’t stop the house from being torn down again,” Kya said.

“You’re right.” Sokka looked Kya in her eyes. “But we can rebuild.”

She frowned. There it was. The lesson. She shook her head, turning away from her uncle. “I don’t want to rebuild. I want my dad back. I want more time.”

“What do those things have to do with Izumi?”

“They don’t.”

“So, why’re you taking it out on her?”

The question cut deep. Kya sighed.

“Embracing Izumi will not replace Zuko, nothing will. _I_ can’t,” Sokka said, gesturing to himself. “And no one wants you to.” He paused until Kya turned back to meet his gaze. “It’s your choice. But think about what I said.”

Kya nodded.

Sokka stood from his place on the beach and dusted the sand from his pants. He slipped on the shoes he had left nearby and walked into the house, leaving Kya alone on the sand.

* * *

Izumi noticed Kya didn’t return with Sokka after he came back to the house. She was disappointed. Heartbreak would have been too strong of an emotion for a relative she had just met. She tried to temper her emotions. What did she expect, barging in unannounced? Kya needs time to come around. The both of them have been dealing with Zuko’s death. They both have it hard.

But Izumi didn’t have time to wait until Kya came around. She had to leave for the South Pole by that evening. She had already lost a day in coming to Kyoshi Island. She didn’t want to lose any more. Jiro would worry if she didn’t send a letter soon.

It was decided. She would leave in the afternoon. Sokka and Suki tried to convince her to stay, to no avail. Her mind was set. Visiting Katara for the first time as her daughter was a more exciting prospect than coaxing Kya into accepting her.

Izumi packed her clothes, which had dried after a few hours in the sun. Suki wrapped meat stuffed buns and sticky rice for her to enjoy during the trip.

“Don’t land at the eastern end,” Sokka warned. “The weather there is harsh this time of year, especially at night.” He packed her bag into the balloon’s carriage. “You’d have to be a waterbender to last through those storms.”

Izumi gave her uncle a hug. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m not headed that way.”

“I’m serious,” he began, pulling back to look at her, “No hot air balloons have navigated those winds. We’ve only sailed to the South Pole.”

She nodded, heeding his advice.

Sokka stepped out of the carriage and stood next to Suki. He pulled her into an embrace.

Suki clasped her hands together. “Come back soon, Izumi. It’s been too long.”

Before she could respond, a voice spoke over hers. “Wait!”

All three of them turned to see Kya rushing down the front steps with a bag slung over her shoulder. She was wearing a different parka, a heavier one, and had another under her arm.

By the time she reached the three on the beach, she was out of breath. She stopped in front of Sokka and dropped her things on the sand. She threw her arms around him, knocking him off balance. “Tell Taro I said goodbye.”

“You’re leaving?” He couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice.

Kya pulled back. She bit back tears. “I want to see Mom.”

For a few moments, Sokka said nothing, only stared. He kissed her forehead. “Don’t be long.”

Kya turned to Suki, who held her tightly. Kya was slightly taller than her now. Suki rolled onto her tiptoes to kiss Kya’s cheek. “This was supposed to be our month together!”

Kya shrugged. “Hey, something came up!” She picked up her bag and extra parka and gave them a toothy grin. “Bye!”

“Bye!” they called back in unison.

Izumi watched the display with wide eyes. She opened the carriage door with out a word. She didn’t know whether to be happy that Kya was joining her or offended that she decided to join up now without talking to her all morning. Nonetheless, she moved aside for Kya as she stepped in.

Still staring at Kya, who was arranging her things, Izumi rolled her fist, releasing fire into the engine hatch. Kya continued preening as the envelope filled and the balloon began to lift from the ground. Annoyed, Izumi stopped tending the fire to close and lock the carriage door beside her sister. She returned to the fire, sending fast blasts into the engine.

“Bye!” Kya yelled again from the mounting balloon as she waved. Their aunt and uncle were dots growing smaller on their stretch of land.

Izumi watched her sister from the corner of her eye. Kya still hadn’t said a thing to her, and they were almost to the clouds. Her manners were appalling.

Just as Izumi thought this, Kya turned, flashing her a smile.

Izumi blushed and looked away, feeling caught.

“Have you ever travelled to the South Pole before?” Kya asked. Her voice was deeper than Izumi’s. Raspier, too. Her accent was mixed; she spoke like both Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom and neither at the same time. An Island accent.

“Not like this.”

“Yeah. You probably sailed in armored royal ships.” Kya took a seat on the carriage bench.

It wasn’t an insult; Kya was just stating a fact. But Izumi couldn’t help feeling like she was being mocked. Yes, she came from royalty. They both did. But she was the only one who lived it. _And acted like it, too_ , she felt herself think. Izumi banished the thought, admonishing herself for thinking lowly of her sister. “Do you wish you were raised royal?” The question sounded more accusatory than conversational.

“No.” Kya responded without hesitation. “I like my life as it is. I can be myself.”

Izumi thought about the will, how she had been groomed to be the next Fire Lord since she was a child. She frowned and looked to the sky, watching their ascent.

“I only wish I’d known Dad more before he died.”

 _Dad_. How could Kya talk about him so colloquially? Izumi had never once referred to Azula as ‘mom’––only ‘godmother.’ Dad. Izumi had no ‘dad.’ She had a father.

She tested the word. “I wish I had known he was my _dad_ at all before he died.” It felt weird on her tongue.

Kya could sense the strangeness of Izumi’s sudden informality and laughed. She laughed and pointed without saying a thing.

Izumi blushed, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment. So, this was how it would be, having a sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took longer than I wanted, much to my disappointment. It took a while to find Kya's voice and the dynamic between the sisters. In the end, I like how it turned out. Their interactions feel natural and earned to me. I hope you didn't mind the wait!


	10. X.

They fell into a sort of rhythm, the four of them. While Izumi was in the Fire Nation, she was brought up under the care of Azula, who made sure she went to the best academies and scheduled plenty of time for enrichment. When she wasn’t in school or in one of her many after school activities, Izumi was with Zuko, who read to and played games with her. During her school holidays, she was with Katara in the South Pole. Katara stayed in the palace whenever the Preservation Council was in recess. Izumi associated Zuko and Katara with playtime and asked for them when they weren’t by her side.

When the three were in the palace together, they felt like a family. A real family. The family they wanted instead of the one they had. Izumi sat curled in Katara’s lap while Zuko told tales of the Great Dragons. Other times, it would be Katara’s turn to tell folktales, weaving stories about wolves and polar bear-dogs.

They were happy. And when Katara became pregnant again four years later, their happiness increased tenfold.

The child, another girl, was born with brown skin and dark hair. She kept her eyes closed, as if she had no interest in the physical world.

“In the Southern Water Tribe,” Katara began, “we believe that a baby choses if they want to stay among us humans, that they come from spirits as old as Tui and La.” She swaddled the baby in a woven quilt, balancing her in her arms.

Izumi sat on a bear-skin rug next to the hearth in the parlor, watching her mother. Katara sat down next to her, holding the baby out for her to cradle. Izumi held out her arms and Katara placed the infant carefully in them, instructing her to mind the baby’s head.

Katara watched one daughter hold the other. Love swelled in her chest.

Izumi stared at the baby in her arms. It slept peacefully, like a doll. “How will we know she wants to stay?”

“When she laughs.”

* * *

When Zuko and Izumi returned to the Fire Nation, Katara returned to her routines. She found a sort of rhythm with the baby. Her experience with raising Izumi allowed to be better prepared for the chaos of another newborn. She kept the baby strapped to her chest as she went about her chores, rocked the baby as she read a book, and sang to the child until she slept.

She and Zuko had agreed to raise the baby with her for the first year while he and Izumi visited. If the child had amber eyes, Azula would take her and raise her in the Fire Nation while Katara visited. Katara stared at her sleeping baby and frowned. Two children gone from her arms. She remembered how close she was to Izumi in that first year and how difficult it had been to give her away. She leaned back in her rocking chair, smoothing back the wisps of hair on her child’s head. The baby still hadn’t opened her eyes.

Katara withdrew from her child. She began to hand the baby off to her grandmother more often than usual. Then she gradually spent more time in the Preservation Council halls. First starting with late nights, then heading in early, and after that, spending her off days at work, too. Some days, her grandmother left the igloo early so Katara would have to spend time with the baby. But Gran-Gran would return, and Katara would immediately shove the baby into her arms.

This avoidance drew Kanna’s notice. When Katara was home, she’d shut herself up in her room. Even if Sokka and Suki came to see the baby, she would come out briefly to greet them before wandering to the kitchen or somewhere else. When she asked Katara directly about it, Katara would take the baby back into her arms as if to say, “See? There’s no problem.” But there was.

Kanna was roused awake by the shifting of weight on her bed. She wasn’t usually a light sleeper but having a newborn in the household meant being up at a moment’s notice. She blinked rapidly as her eyes focused. It was hard adjusting to the low light in the room, but she was able to tell who it was before she could fully see.

Katara was perched at the edge of the bed. She sat next to where the baby was sleeping, watching over her intensely. The baby had been sleeping with Kanna for some days now. Katara had graduated from avoiding the baby to not even wanting to co-sleep with the child. Kanna was more than happy to host the infant in her room. It reminded her of when her own daughter was just born.

But why Katara would suddenly come to watch over the child was beyond her. “Katara?” her voice was rasp with sleep.

The outline of Katara’s head shifted, presumably to Kanna. “You’re awake?”

“Yes. You woke me.”

Katara’s silhouette was still for a moment. “I’m sorry. I’ll go back to my room,” she said without moving to get up.

Was she waiting for her to back to sleep? “Is something wrong?” Kanna asked.

Katara’s silhouette shifted down to the baby. “No, I…” If Kanna could see in the darkness, she would have said her granddaughter was looking at the baby with longing. It was evident enough in her voice.

“What’s wrong?”

Katara said nothing.

Kanna looked to the baby. From where the moonlight filtered through the curtains, she could see Katara’s hand on the baby’s cheek. It moved to sweep back her soft, black curls. The motion was sweet and almost chaste, as if Katara was hesitant to show any more affection. She stood to leave.

“You love this child, don’t you?” Kanna’s voice cut through the silence.

Katara turned and faced her grandmother. “Of course.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” The answer was curt and practiced, just like all the times she had said it before.

Kanna pushed further. “Why do avoid her in the day but sneak to see her at night?”

The word hung between them. _Her_. The child still didn’t have a name, an identity.

After a weighty pause, Katara spoke. “She’s going to leave and be with Azula.”

“You don’t know that,” Kanna said softly.

Katara was silent for a long time. Every time her figure shifted in the darkness, Kanna was prepared to listen, but she was met with more silence.

“You’re afraid. You don’t want to give love only for it to be taken away. I understand.” Kanna sat upright in the bed. “But you can’t just turn the child away. A child always knows when they are unwanted.”

“She isn’t unwanted,” Katara rasped, almost cutting off her grandmother’s words.

“Then hold her.”

There was a pause before Kanna heard a footstep. Katara walked into the moonlight before stooping down to gather her baby in her arms. Her face was wet with tears. The baby roused slightly but stayed asleep. Katara brought the child’s forehead to her lips, placing a soft kiss there. The baby gurgled and whined, rubbing her forehead with a closed fist as Katara drew back. She opened her eyes, searching for the source of her disturbance before landing on her mother’s face. Katara could see the color clear as day.

Blue.

Blue eyes stared into blue eyes as Katara dropped to her knees, trembling. She held the baby to her chest.

Blue. She can stay.

“S–she has blue eyes!” Katara managed. Her breathing came in hasty gulps as she fought back tears.

“Would you love her any less if she didn’t?” Kanna’s voice was nearly expressionless, hard for Katara to read.

Katara shook her head. “No. No.” She lifted her baby from her chest and held her at eye level. She had already gone back to sleep. “I just––I was just scared. I don’t want to be without my child. Never again.” Katara began to cry. “My Kya. I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this, Act 2 draws to a close. The story will be wrapping up soon enough... Thank you for being on this journey with me!


	11. XI.

The balloon ride was mostly silent. After lifting off, the two exchanged some pleasantries before the conversation faded away. The awkward silence was weighed down by Izumi’s hope of getting along easily with her sister. Kya watched the clouds when she wasn’t trying to make conversation which made Izumi realize that it might be okay if they didn’t talk. They were practically strangers.

When the conversation found its way back to them, they mostly discussed their respective childhoods. Naturally, Kya knew more about Izumi’s childhood than the other way around. Izumi squirmed at the thought of being known so well. It made her feel seen in the way someone would feel after a lifetime of being ignored.

“That’s what having a sibling is like,” Kya explained. “Our cousins have known me since I was a baby. They’ve seen me in poopy diapers. And when I was in my awkward phase!”

Izumi hummed and rubbed her chin. “I know nothing about that. The only people that saw me in ‘poopy diapers’ and my awkward phase were my godmother and our father.”

“You never had a best friend?” Kya suddenly sounded concerned.

“No, no! I did, I do!” Izumi held up her hands defensively. “But no one’s known me from diapers.”

“I’m sure there’s someone.”

Izumi thought. “I do have Tenzin and Bumi. Bumi’s seen me in diapers and I’ve seen Tenzin in diapers. In theory. I was one when he was a baby.”

Kya smiled. “So, they’re like your brothers?”

“I guess so.” Memories of herself and the boys came to mind. Izumi smiled. “But I was mostly around adults as a child.”

Kya leaned back in her carriage seat. “That explains why you’re so stuffy.”

“Stuffy?” Izumi asked. Kya spoke bawdily, without filter. Her frankness was a shock to Izumi. There was a chance that she didn’t mean offense, but Izumi couldn’t help feeling offended.

“Yeah! You speak so formally all the time.” Kya rested her elbows on her knees.

“I do not!”

She shrugged. “Maybe that’s just the way people in the Fire Nation talk.”

Izumi crossed her arms and huffed. “Maybe that’s just the way royalty talks.”

Kya snapped to attention. “I’m royalty, too! Don’t get huffy at me because Azula never let you out of the palace.”

“Excuse me?”

Kya rolled her eyes. She leaned back again. “It’s obvious that you don’t mingle with common folk as much. You’d br out of place in the South Pole. There’s only commoners there. Our chiefs are elected.”

Izumi flushed. She could feel herself holding her breath as tried to keep her composure. “Is that an insult?! I’m Water Tribe, too.”

Kya waved her sister off. “How much time have you spent at the Poles? You may be just as much Water Tribe as I am, but what do you know about that half?”

Izumi angrily looked to the sky, placing her hand on the balloon’s helm. “Well, that’s why I’m visiting our mother. To learn,” she grumbled. “What do you know about the Fire Nation?”

“Enough,” Kya replied coolly.

Izumi didn’t press her further. She didn’t want to know what her sister thought of her home country. Whatever Kya knew, she decided, was wrong. She kept her eyes on the sky, on the clouds that darkened by the hour. They were close, she could feel it.

The wind picked up as they flew over white hills and mountains. Izumi felt the tiller rattle under her hand after a particularly strong gust.

Kya leaned over the edge of the carriage. “We’re flying over the Eastern End. Keep our course straight.”

“I know how to fly a hot air balloon, thank you very much,” Izumi said, glaring at Kya from the corner of her eye. “I doubt they have these on Kyoshi Island.”

Kya plunked down on the carriage bench, crossing her arms. “You’re right. We don’t have these. They’re too unreliable. Our boats get us past the Eastern End without fear of crashing.”

“Are they too unreliable or too expensive?” Izumi goaded.

“You know what? They aren’t too unreliable. Sorry, my bad. They’re too _useless_!” Kya hissed, dragging out the last word.

Izumi clutched the helm tightly; heat sparked against the metal handle. “You should have stayed on the island.”

“Excuse me?” Kya scoffed.

Izumi stood and spun around, facing Kya and towering over her. “You should have stayed on the island!” she shouted as the wind whipped. Her hair flew wildly around her, casting her face in shadow.

Kya looked up at her sister with wide eyes, startled by her anger. Her eyes immediately flickered to the helm, which was spinning with the ferocity of the wind. The carriage rocked with the balloon’s lack of direction. “Izumi, the handle!” She lunged for it.

Izumi looked back, seeing the spinning handle before Kya grabbed it. “No! You don’t know how to steer!” She reached out, grabbing Kya’s wrist.

Before the course could be righted, something in the balloon gave way. It was a slight, almost imperceptible snap but Izumi could feel it: a sudden lightness. As if something weren’t tight enough. “What was that?!” she shouted frantically over the wind.

“What was wh––” Kya’s question morphed into an incoherent scream as the carriage dropped from under them.

Izumi fell upwards into the balloon’s envelope as they plummeted. She pushed the heavy fabric out of her face and caught sight of what had given way. There was a hole in the balloon with frayed threads where the panels should have been connected. Her mind immediately went to the rough landing on Kyoshi Island. The force of her restarting the engine must have weakened the top of the balloon. The rough winds were the last thing needed to snap the threads. Izumi frowned. She should have checked the balloon before they left.

But that didn’t matter now. They were already falling out of the sky.

She held on tightly to the ropes that connected the envelope to the carriage. There was no way to reinflate the balloon, so they’d have to lessen the impact. She caught sight of Kya, who was screaming with her eyes closed as she held onto the carriage’s edge.

“Let go!” Izumi shouted to her sister.

“What?!” The disbelief was evident in Kya’s voice.

“Let go,” Izumi repeated. “We’re going to land on the Eastern End. You need to make a cushion for us. Use your waterbending!”

Kya screamed in response.

Izumi rolled her eyes. “That’s not helpful!”

Kya sobbed uncontrollably.

Her tears floated up and hit Izumi’s face. Izumi bared her teeth in agitation, wishing she were the one who could waterbend instead. They were about to die because Kya was too scared to act. Her lip quivered and her eyes drifted closed. She felt tears come and fly backwards into the sky. She was frustrated at Kya and angry at herself. Now, they were going to die.

Izumi could imagine it; her bones breaking, her blood turning the snow-covered ground a deep red. She could imagine the people who would stumble upon her and Kya’s remains, wrapped in a Fire Nation tarp, as they went sledding when the storm cleared. She could imagine Jiro’s sorrow at her untimely demise. He would be wracked with guilt, thinking if only he had pushed harder to send a convoy… But what she couldn’t imagine was how it would feel. The pain at the sudden impact. Would the carriage break apart and pierce her body? Would she die instantly or be forced to spend the last minutes of her life writhing in pain? She felt the air compress against her face and knew they weren’t too far from the ground. She braced for impact.

To her surprise, the landing wasn’t painful at all. It was actually pleasant. Like landing on a cloud.

Izumi opened her eyes. She sat half sunken in a mound of snow. Kya was next to her, her head and hands poking of the snow hill. The carriage was a few feet away from them, buried under more snow, along with the balloon. Izumi took a deep breath, suddenly cold.

She coughed before breathing fire from the back of her throat. “We’re alive.”

Kya sniffled. “Yeah.” Tears were frozen to her cheeks. She stared into the middle distance.

“Do you think we can make it to civilization?” Izumi asked, attempting to wake Kya from her trance.

“Not tonight,” her sister answered plainly.

Izumi pouted. “What’s wrong? We made it. We’re alive because of you.”

Kya turned to her. “What do you mean ‘what’s wrong’?! We almost died!” Her voice broke.

Izumi warmed her body and melted the snow around herself. She moved to melt the snow around Kya. “I know. Maybe the shock will hit me later. But right now, we need to take our food and clothes out of the balloon and find somewhere to sleep.”

Izumi spoke calmly, which unnerved Kya. She stepped out of the snow hill as it was melted away. “Are you always this level-headed?”

Izumi rubbed her arms to ward off the cold. “Not always. I was a wreck when our father died.” When Kya moved to speak, Izumi cut her off. “Didn’t you bring another parka?”

“Yeah.” She pointed to the buried carriage and they walked to it.

The two gathered their things in silence. Izumi found Kya’s parka and slipped it over her robes. Kya slung her bag over one shoulder and carried the food with another arm. Izumi grabbed her bag.

“How long do you think we’ll be out here?” she asked.

Kya shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes there’s patrols that come out here after a bad storm but we’re in the middle of that bad storm.”

Izumi nodded. “Can you tell the time?”

“It should be around evening. Just before sundown.”

“Do you think the food will hold us?”

“I think we should get as far as we can on foot and set up camp. The farther west we are, the easier it’ll be for the patrols to find us.” Kya looked out into the distance. There was nothing but dunes of snow for miles. The wind had settled but the sky was still gray. Another storm was coming soon. “We shouldn’t be here for more than a day or two.”

Izumi frowned. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Kya shrugged. “If we ration, we should be fine. If not, I can fish.”

Izumi sighed. For the first time, she could feel the new weight of her body. Her hand moved of its own accord, settling over her belly. “I don’t know how far I can walk before sundown.”

“No problem,” Kya said walking to the carriage. She planted her feet firmly in the snow, moving her arms in slow, graceful motions. The snow around the carriage fell away and pushed it upright. “Hop in and I’ll get us there.”

* * *

Izumi lost track of the time they spent in the carriage. She watched the sky through the clouds as Kya moved them through the snow. The white expanse of the tundra made it hard to tell where they were or how far they moved since they started. They passed mountains, trees, snowbanks, and more trees. Izumi was amazed that Kya even could tell they were heading west. It all looked the same to her.

They decided to stop for the night when the storm picked up again. The wind began to blow Kya off course, so she made them an igloo large enough to fit them and the carriage. Izumi suggested using the balloon as a tarp to sleep on.

With a few sticks she had gathered while Kya crafted the igloo, Izumi made a fire in the center directly below a hole left in the ceiling that acted as a chimney. Kya used a few of the remaining sticks to create a grate to warm their tins of rice over the fire.

“I could never do that,” Izumi said, watching Kya balance the grate on its legs.

Kya held a hand over the rice, checking its temperature. “There isn’t much to it.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t ever think to do that. I would’ve just eaten it cold.”

Kya removed her tin from the fire. “It’s because you were raised in a palace. You never had to use survival skills.” She fished chopsticks from her bag and tossed the rice.

Izumi bristled and snatched her tin from the flame. She blew on it softly. It was true. If she weren’t naturally quick-witted, who knows would have become of her on her solo adventures? She surely couldn’t navigate as fearlessly as Kya could. Hot air balloon piloting was certainly less involved than commanding a ship. She didn’t have practical knowledge of anything. She poked at her rice with her chopsticks.

Kya scarfed down her food hungrily, stopping when she noticed Izumi picking at her tin. “Something wrong?”

Izumi sighed and shook her head. “It’s nothing really.” She stared at her rice for a moment before picking at it again.

Kya waited.

“No one’s ever pointed out my weaknesses before. It’s unnerving,” Izumi said, struggling to place words to her emotions.

“That’s what having a sibling is like,” Kya assured. “No one will put you out on your ass like I will.”

Izumi gave her sister a half-smile. Kya was trying to lift her spirits, she could tell, but it wasn’t working. “It feels like you’re teasing me for being raised in the Fire Nation.”

Kya hummed. She paused before speaking, making sure to pick her words carefully. “I’m sorry it sounds that way. I guess I’m used to saying the first thing that comes to mind. That’s how people are on Kyoshi Island.”

Izumi nodded. “I don’t want you to think I feel that I’m better than you––or anyone!” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “It just feels like an insult when you tell me that I act stuffy. I’m far from the ‘salt of the earth’ type, but I’m not that bad.”

“You’re _not_ that bad,” Kya agreed. “But it’s obvious that talking about your wealth makes you feel some type of way.”

Izumi tucked into herself, wrapping her arms around her legs. “I guess it’s embarrassing. I’m half Water Tribe but living in igloos, wearing pelts, hunting are all things I never had to do. I feel like a fraud.”

Kya sat back, leaning against the snow wall as she set her empty tin on the tarp. “You have your whole life to get closer to your Water Tribe half.”

“That may be true but…” Izumi trailed off. There was always a drawback. She shook her head and laughed bitterly. “Why am I even here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why I am here? Stranded in the tundra during a storm, on my way to meet my mother, the world’s greatest waterbender?” She laughed again. “It’s not like she can help me!”

Kya raised an eyebrow. “Help you with what?”

Izumi stopped laughing and sighed. She looked at her sister. “I’m supposed to be Fire Lord.”

“Yeah? So?”

“What do you mean? ‘Yeah, so?’ It’s a big deal!”

“I know, but you’re the first born. It’s no surprise that you’ll be the next Fire Lord.”

Izumi blinked, suddenly remembering that Kya had known everything she had just discovered for three years. “I only found that out last week!”

“Oh…”

Izumi tugged at her hair. They words poured out before she could stop them. “Not only did I just find out who my parents are, I found out that I have a sister and that I’m the heir to the _throne_! _And not only that_ but my life has been planned out for me since before I was born! When Godmother showed me that will…she basically told me that every hobby I had, everything I did for fun was carefully decided for me. I thought I studied history because I loved Father’s stories or because I loved reading about epic battles or because I knew people that fought in the Hundred Year War. But no. Father wanted me to be a Fire Lord that was formally trained in the humanities instead of the military, so he read me stories, put all these ideals and paradigms in me about knowing the past to make a brighter future. Then he died without leaving me a choice of whether I could take the throne or not!” She buried her face in her hands.

Kya was speechless. She watched Izumi slowly drag her head from out of her hands.

“So, what could Mother say to that?” she rasped.

Kya was quiet for a few moments longer before speaking. “She would say that you were born with a purpose and even if you didn’t choose it, you already have the tools you need to be a great leader.” She caught her sister’s eyes and smiled warmly.

Izumi rested her head on her knees and sighed. She smiled back. Their mother _would_ say that.

* * *

Sun shined through the snow of the igloo, lighting the space in bright blues and pale golds. Light bled through the hole in the ceiling and shined on Izumi’s eyes. She stirred awake, blocking the sunlight with an open hand. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she was able to see the sky through the chimney. It was clear and blue; not a cloud in sight. Izumi rolled onto her side and spotted the space where the fire had burned the night before. Nothing left but smoldering ash. If they were going to survive another day, she’d need to gather more wood.

Izumi moved to the archway of the igloo and saw the same thing she saw through the chimney. Clear sky, no storms approaching. She looked back to Kya, who was sleeping soundly. She could gather firewood and be back before her sister woke up.

Outside, the air was brisk against her face. She rubbed her cheeks. Immediately feeling the bite of the cold, she stuffed her hands in the fur-lined pockets of her parka. Kya didn’t bring a second set of mittens. Izumi breathed her breath of fire, allowing the flames to lick at her lips and warm her from the inside out.

Her feet found the thicket easily. To her surprise, walking through the snow of last night’s storm was easy. It was soft and powdery and left long tracks where her robes touched the ground.

The trees were tall and strong, which surprised Izumi again. Wood was rarely used by the Water Tribes, which led her to believe there weren’t many trees or that the ones they had were too weak to be used for housing. As she stooped to collect fallen branches and snap ones that were lower on the trunks, it occurred to Izumi that perhaps, here, nature was just allowed to be.

The Fire Nation treated nature as something to be subjugated. They bored through the earth for iron ore and cut down forests for their houses. She remembered seeing the colonial settlements in the Earth Kingdom. How the metal-fortified houses looked next to villages with houses made of adobe and sunbaked brick. She thought then that the Earth Kingdom houses looked poor and unkempt but now… she didn’t know what to think.

The wind picked up as Izumi gathered the last of the necessary firewood. She looked up and noticed that the sky had visibly darkened, too. Could a storm start that quickly? She headed for the igloo.

* * *

Kya stirred from her sleep and saw an empty divot in the tarp where Izumi had been sleeping. She shot up, looking around the small space. “Izumi?” She crawled out of the igloo.

Outside, the breeze rustled through her hair, mussing the tendrils that framed her face. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Izumi!” she called.

No one answered.

She wandered around the perimeter of the igloo before catching sight of tracks in the snow. They led into the thicket that was a little ways away from their camp. The sky was a blue-gray and was getting darker. A storm was coming.

Kya could feel her heart drop. “Oh, no…”

She ran, following the tracks and calling her sister’s name.

* * *

A storm _could_ start that quickly.

Izumi was more than annoyed when the wind picked up so severely, she almost dropped her firewood. It was the entire reason she was currently risking her life and she would _not_ return to the igloo empty handed. She stopped to pick every twig that fell from her hands.

Slowly, snow joined the rough wind. Izumi remembered what her uncle had warned about the Eastern End. He said that it was difficult for even waterbenders to survive its intense storms. She was foolish to think she could do a quick run. The wind whipped against her face and she brought up a hand, sending out a blast of heat to counter the wind and snow, allowing her to move against its force.

* * *

Kya kept her arms moving, bending away the falling snow to keep her visibility as high as it could be. Every couple of feet, she called for her sister. As she walked, she became discouraged. It would be near impossible for Izumi to hear her above the wind. Kya could only hope that her sister could navigate herself back to the igloo. But Izumi didn’t know how to navigate on land.

Tears fell down Kya’s cheeks. She had only just met her sister. Now she would lose her.

* * *

It was white in all directions. Izumi couldn’t see more than two feet in front of her, even after sending out gusts of fire. The snow would be eaten away by flames, but would return within the second it took to extend her arm. So, she walked without direction. The tracks she had made less than thirty minutes prior were either covered or invisible to her beneath all the white.

She had kept herself going using the trunks of trees to bolster her forward movement. But reaching out this time, her hand grasped nothing. She looked to her sides. The trees were gone.

Izumi shot three open palmed punches in rapid succession. Each barreled into the white abyss, hitting nothing. She was out of the forest but nowhere near the igloo. She pressed the wood tightly to her chest and stood motionless. Unsure of what to do, she closed her eyes and listened.

The wind whipped around her body. She could hear it rustling the robes beneath her parka, whipping past the folds of her ear. She could feel it stinging the tips of her fingers, turning the branches beneath her palms icy. She could hear the far-off rustling of trees and the even farther off the crunching of snow. Her eyes snapped open.

“Kya?!” she called into the distance.

Izumi swore she could hear the faint sound of her name in response. She stayed planted in the snow. “Kya!”

The crunching noises became louder and Izumi called her sister’s name again excitedly. She had been found.

Izumi called fire to her hand to serve as a beacon to make herself easier to find. The fire created soft shadows that barely penetrated the thick of the white. But its meager light illuminated a large figure that was approaching her. The noises of footfall grew louder, too loud for a single person to create on their own. The ground beneath her shook. Her smile dropped.

The firewood dropped from her hands as Izumi gathered the skirts of her robe. The soft powdery snow she had walked through before had formed an icy crust that worked against her as she ran. Each footstep broke through the layer and caused her foot to get stuck momentarily. She was frantic as the thunderous footfall grew louder. Her feet became more erratic.

One misstep and she fell, her body breaking the thin crust and plunging into the powdery snow beneath. The snow flung into her hair, onto her face, into her robes. She brought her head up from the ground, shaking out the ice and snow that blocked her sight. She gasped, cold air filling her lungs.

Whatever was barreling towards her had slowed down. It walked slowly, stepping out of the snow-fog and into view. It was a large white beast with the face of a dog and large, powerful legs. It was easily three times as big as she was. Its snout pressed around before its black nose came sniffing at her face. Izumi tensed, but it merely nudged her with its nose and backed away. It was friendly.

Izumi noticed that the snow around her had reduced to a flurry. There were sleds approaching in the distance that were pulled by wolves. The sleds penetrated a barrier that separated the blizzard from the flurry. There were waterbenders on the sleds.

“Are you alright?” A female voice came from the top of the beast, probably its rider. The voice was delicate and firm. It was very familiar.

The rider hopped down from the beast’s side and walked towards Izumi slowly. She raised her hands and spoke clearly, “We won’t hurt you.” The woman pulled her hood back as she came into view.

Izumi’s eyes widened.

Katara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters are becoming harder to write! We're heading into the emotional core of the story, so I feel like the interactions and situations should be as authentic as possible. Though I'd love to update every week until it's finished, I don't want the story to feel rushed or unfinished. I hope you didn't mind the wait!


	12. XII.

The reunion was not at all what Izumi had expected. She was hoping for something more civilized. A meeting over dinner, maybe. Or a run-in in the marketplace. But a crash landing on the barren end of the South Pole was not in her plans.

Katara recognized Izumi immediately. Her eyes went wide behind her thick wind goggles. She was covered in a healthy dusting of snow and her hair was held back by a braid, messy from being under the hood of her seal skin parka. She looked almost wild. Not the collected, graceful woman Izumi knew.

“Izumi!” Katara wound her arms around her daughter, pulling her into a tight embrace. Her goggles pressed into the side of Izumi’s face. She pulled back. “I never would have imagined finding you out here!”

“Yeah,” Izumi said breathlessly, clutching the sleeves of her mother’s parka. “Me neither.”

Katara continued, unphased. “Who did you come with? Do you know where they’d be?” She jostled Izumi around in her hands, checking for injuries.

Izumi stared back at her mother in bewilderment. It was just business as usual for Katara. “I was with Kya. She should be at the igloo.”

Katara froze and stood straight. “Kya?” There was something in her voice that Izumi couldn’t read. A mixture of surprise and hope.

“Yes.”

Katara stared at Izumi for a long time, saying nothing. A range of emotions passed over her face. It was subtle, but Izumi knew her mother well enough to know the quirk of the brow that meant contemplation and the twitch of the mouth that meant understanding. She smiled. “Then we don’t have a second to lose.”

Katara offered a ride on the back of Koda, her polar bear dog, but Izumi refused, stating that she’d be more comfortable on the ground. She rode with another one of the patrollers in a wolf-drawn sled. Her sled was in front of the others, leading their way to the igloo where she had left Kya sleeping that morning. Koda, with Katara on his back, trailed behind the sleds, rocking the snow-covered earth with every gallop of his legs.

Izumi looked back at them. They were a vision of power. Katara perched on top of Koda, clutching the saddle reigns and standing on the stirrups. Her eyes were trained on the path ahead. She looked like a huntress; she only needed a spear in her hand.

“There!” Katara shouted.

Izumi turned back to the expanse before them. Just over the horizon was the igloo. It was so far in the distance, she was surprised Katara could see it at all.

“Yah!” Katara whipped Koda’s reigns, leaning forward into the motion. She and Koda quickly surpassed the sleds, moving out of the vortex that separated the patrol from the storm.

Izumi watched with interest, straining against the sled. She stood, leaning against the patroller who she was riding with to gain a better view. But there was nothing to see. Katara had slipped into the storm and simply vanished.

“Do you think they need help?” she asked the patroller.

The patroller turned to look at her. He had a scruffy face beneath his goggles. He spoke over the wind. “If Katara’s in there, there’s nothing to worry about.” He flashed her a crooked grin.

Izumi frowned and returned her gaze to the storm.

* * *

Since discovering her parentage, Izumi had wondered why Zuko and Katara couldn’t have found some kind of compromise. Something that would have allowed them to live together; something that would have allowed herself and Kya to be raised together. The compromise, in her mind, would have involved Katara moving to the Fire Nation and becoming the Fire Lady, ruling at Zuko’s side. It would have been the traditional route; it was a woman’s work to follow wherever her man led. But that wasn’t Katara’s path.

Watching Katara on her polar bear dog, riding into the storm, coming back with Kya in a matter of minutes, Izumi realized that Katara would have never been happy in the Fire Nation. She couldn’t have sat pretty as all the affairs of the nation were done for her. It wasn’t her way. It wasn’t the way of Southern Water Tribe women. They were hunters, foragers, warriors, weavers, not idle women. Her mother wouldn’t have known what to do with herself.

Izumi pondered these things as she ran a fine-toothed whale bone comb through her hair, removing the ice crystals that had gotten stuck in the strands. Her reflection stared back at her through her mother’s vanity mirror. She watched the comb with each pass of her hand.

Katara had given Kya and Izumi free reign in her home to freshen up. Kya took the time to draw herself a bath. Izumi stayed in her mother’s bedroom, cataloguing the heirlooms and unique Water Tribe items before settling on the comb.

The item was fine and delicately crafted. It was worn; the teeth were stubby, and the white bone had become cream in certain places. Every few strokes, Izumi stopped to admire the detail. In all the years she spent unknowingly preparing for the throne, she was oblivious to this side of her. Maybe she could have used the comb when it was knew. At least, newer.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

Katara’s voice drew Izumi from her introspection. She had since stopped combing her hair and just was admiring the item. Embarrassed, Izumi stood from the vanity and bowed, placing the comb on its surface. “I was just––“

Katara held up a hand. She gestured to the vanity’s chair. “It’s fine. Please.”

Izumi sat back down stiffly as if she were ordered to.

Katara picked the comb from where it lay. She turned it in her hands. “This was from a Southern waterbender. It’s older than me.”

Izumi looked at her mother in the mirror. “Whose was it?”

“A woman named Hama. She was a friend of my grandmother’s.” Katara frowned and paused before continuing. “She was a complicated woman with a lot of hatred for the Fire Nation. She took her pain and anger out on innocent people. But we brought her back here, where she reunited with Gran-Gran and her home. She gave me this before she passed.”

Izumi was silent, watching her mother’s reflection. The hard set of Katara’s upper lip relaxed into a smile.

“But it’s supposed to be worn like this.” She undid Izumi’s top knot, letting the hair drop to her shoulders. With one hand, she swept Izumi’s hair back and with the other, she pressed the comb in the place, holding the bun together. “There.”

Izumi admired herself in the mirror. Her hair was pulled into a low bun. The style brought out the sharp angles of her cheekbones and chin. She watched her mother’s hands swoop to either side of her, gently pulling tendrils from the bun to frame her face. The comb looked pearlescent against her black hair.

Katara rested her hands on Izumi’s shoulders and sighed. She admired Izumi through the mirror, catching her reflection’s eye. She smiled, creasing the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. Lowering her face to Izumi’s and squeezing her shoulders, she whispered, “Such a beautiful Water Tribe girl.”

Izumi stared back at her reflection. “It feels more like I’m dressing up as one.”

“That’s okay, too,” Katara said, standing straight. “I know we didn’t do too good of a job connecting you to both sides of who you are.” She moved to the bed and sat on its edge. “But I hope that eventually you’ll see yourself as Water Tribe. For real.”

Izumi beamed. “I would love nothing more––” Her breath caught on the word she wanted so desperately to add. _Mother_. _Mom_. It wasn’t the right time. “I would love nothing more.”

Katara waited for Izumi to continue speaking. When the silence became too much to bear, she spoke. “Why else have you come?”

Izumi picked a beaded bracelet from the vanity and slipped it onto her wrist, absently tugging at its beads. She watched her hand with vacant interest as her words danced nervously on the tip of her tongue. “I read the will,” she said with a labored intensity. Her words stopped there.

Katara nodded solemnly. She could tell from the tone of Izumi’s voice alone what she was referring to. “Would you have come otherwise?” she asked timidly.

Izumi pulled the bracelet and let the beads snap back onto her wrist. She raised her eyes, looking at her mother’s reflection in the vanity mirror. Katara’s reflected eyes met her own. “Maybe not. But what’s really changed between us now that I know?” She gestured to the room. _All this, the same. Nothing has changed_. Her wrist dropped limply onto the vanity with a clanging of the beads. “I’ve always loved you.” Her eyes stung.

Katara raised her eyebrows. “I lo––”

“You’re my mother,” Izumi cut in. Warm tears streamed down her cheeks. Her voice was calm. “You don’t need to say it. I know.”

Katara stood shaking her head. “But do you know?” She stood and knelt beside Izumi, taking her hands and waiting until she met her eyes. “You’re my daughter and I love you. I wish I’d never left you. I wished it every day. But we’re together now. And I’ll be right next to you when you take the throne.”

Izumi moved from her chair, kneeling on the floor with her mother. She wriggled her hands from Katara’s and instead wrapped her arms around her. Her tears dropped onto Katara’s parka as she returned the embrace.

“That’s what I came to hear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long! I haven't abandoned this project. Life has been busy and slightly stressful for me. It's time to return to something less stressful and actually enjoyable. I hope to finish this story soon. It only has three chapters left anyways!


	13. XIII.

Katara ran her weather-worn fingers through Kya’s hair. “It’s gotten so long. Why keep it long if you don’t want to take care of it?” She took a section of her hair and began to braid.

Kya, sitting on the floor while Katara sat on the bed, huffed. “I like it long. It makes me look good.”

“You know, you could have a wolf’s tail like Sokka,” Katara said, pulling Kya’s hair back. “Just shave the sides.”

“No way!” Kya pulled her head from her mother’s hold, making the braid come undone. She stood and smoothed her hair back into her usual ponytail.

Katara crossed her arms. “You think you’re too good for the wolf’s tail?”

“Too good-looking.” Kya tied her ribbon in place and bent to check her appearance in the vanity mirror.

Kya had been close to Katara for as long as she could remember, long before she knew they were related by blood. When she lived as a child in Sokka and Suki’s household, they visited the South Pole often. There, she’d spend her days in the markets with Katara picking out toys and eating street food. When she was a preteen, she was sent to a boarding school in the South Pole where she was with Katara nearly every day. They were closer than close. Moving Katara from “cool aunt” to “mother” was a natural step.

“I know the trip here was rough,” Katara started, “but how was meeting Izumi?”

Kya joined Katara on the bed, flopping onto her back next to where her mother sat. She stared up at the smooth snow ceiling and sighed. “A bit strange. She’s never had a sibling before. She doesn’t like it when people are honest with her.”

Katara raised an eyebrow. “‘Honest’ or rude?”

Kya rolled her eyes and smiled. “I _might_ have been a _little_ harsh. But she’s not used to that sort of thing. We kinda had a fight on our way here.”

“Really?”

Kya propped herself up on her elbows. “It wasn’t a real fight! She got really upset when I told her that she was stuffy.” She fell back onto the bed and shrugged. “It wouldn’t have bothered _me_ that much.”

“Because you’re used to it,” Katara said. “What else did you think of her?”

Kya closed her eyes and imagined her sister’s face. “…she’s beautiful. More beautiful than her portraits.” She sighed, breathing heavily through her nose. “She looks so much like Dad.” Her voice broke at the word “dad.”

Katara furrowed her brow, squeezing her eyes shut. Zuko’s face appeared behind her eyelids. She imagined his eyes, the sharp curve of his jaw, how Izumi had taken on those features. The image faded as she opened her eyes. She took in the sight of Kya in front of her, noting her own features on this daughter’s face. She smiled. “I know.”

“I just wish––” Kya began, taking a shaky breath.

“I know, I know,” Katara cooed. “You don’t have to explain it me. I know.”

She watched Kya’s face, seeing the calm wash away into something more troubled with the quivering of her lip and the twitch of her brow. Katara laid back on the bed, resting her head next to Kya’s. She placed both palms on her belly and stared up at the ceiling. “I never would have imagined it turning out this way, leaving you two so hurt and confused.”

Kya turned to face her mother, looking at her with interest.

“We thought we were doing the right thing.” Katara closed her eyes. “Maybe we were just being selfish.”

“What?” The question came out small and broken from Kya’s mouth.

Katara sighed. “I wanted my life here. Would it have been too much to have given it up so we all could be together?” She faced Kya and placed a hand on her cheek, caressing her with her thumb. “I’m sorry.”

Kya smiled wearily and looked to the ceiling. “You did the best you could.”

Katara did the same. “Yes. I suppose so.”

* * *

“And these ones here?” Izumi asked pointing to the sea prunes that were in neat stacks on a vendor’s stall.

Hakoda, with slow and labored steps, approached Izumi’s side, looking over her shoulder to see what she was pointing to. He took in the sight of the sea prunes, surveying each stack closely. Some were dried, some were out of season––obviously imported from the North––and some were deliciously plump. Puffing out his chest, he turned to his granddaughter. “How long has it been since you’ve had stewed sea prunes?”

Izumi raised her eyebrows. “You _stew_ sea prunes?”

Hakoda smiled. “I’ll take the dried ones,” he said to the vendor, handing the man a few pieces of Water Tribe currency.

The vendor accepted he money gladly and filled Hakoda’s bag with the prunes. “Thank you and have a nice day, Chief Hakoda.” He bowed and nodded to Izumi in acknowledgement.

They nodded in kind.

As they walked away, Hakoda handed Izumi his burlap sack, encouraging her to try a few prunes. “You wouldn’t like them in a stew, but they make a good snack.”

Izumi took the back and fished out a dried sea prune. It was a dark purple with hard edges and looked like a bruise. She squeezed it in her fingers. Firm with a little give. When she finally bit into it, she was surprised at how sweet its flavor was. “This is really good!”

“Knew you’d like it,” Hakoda said, with a proud smile.

Izumi had ran into her grandfather by accident that day. After speaking with Katara, she had decided to take some time to explore the South Pole’s capital city. She started with the city-center. It wasn’t so much a city-center as it was a district of very important buildings. And the capital city wasn’t so much a city as it was a very large town. She wandered into the Preservation Council building which was open for visitors as the council was in recess.

While roaming the halls, she overheard a heated discussion between some people she could only imagine were council members. Going against all her royal etiquette training, Izumi inched closer to the door and eavesdropped on the discussion. She pressed her ear to the wall.

“I tell you; the North should have done more to protect us during the war!” raised a gruff voice.

“Their silence during the years of invasions was quite telling, in my opinion,” said another, more meek, voice. “One hundred years of war and they couldn’t send one fleet our way?”

“I understand and agree,” began a third voice. “But were are already two different nations with different practices and laws. The only thing we have in common is waterbending. And we even have different styles!” This voice sounded warm and familiar. Izumi found herself comforted by it.

“Now that we’re finally stable after the havoc they allowed, I think it’s time we broke off from them,” said the gruff voice.

Izumi inhaled sharply in surprise.

“We’re already on the other side of the world!” the warm voice countered. “What more can we ‘break off’?”

“Trade,” offered the meek one.

“But wouldn’t that hurt us in the process?” the warm voice asked.

“Well, maybe for the first few years,” said the meek voice, “but we have strong enough trade with Kyoshi Island and the Earth Kingdom to sustain us. And if we could strengthen trade with the Fire Nation––”

“The Fire Nation?!” The warm voice chuckled. “You’d rather turn to the Fire Nation than fix our relationship with our sister tribe? Over a problem _they_ caused?”

The gruff voice rushed to the meek one’s defense. “There are other ways to offset the loss in trade.”

The warm one wasn’t convinced. “Like how?” When no other offers were given, he continued. “I think we can have a few more years of stability before starting a new war.”

“You only say this because you married into the Northern Water Tribe! What about us who have no connections?” the gruff voice accused. “There’s dissent! If you don’t cut off trade with the North, you’ll have a civil war on your hands. I think an embargo is better than war after a few shaky years of stability!”

There was a lull in the conversation. The warm one was thinking it over. Izumi was incredulous. War? In the Water Tribes? It couldn’t be. She was taken away from her home in the South Pole in fear of being hated for her Fire Nation half. But now the reaction would be the same if she were half Northern Water Tribe instead? Izumi shook her head, unable to make sense of it. She listened further.

“Where have you heard this dissent?” the warm voice asked, moved by the news. “I know there has been some dissatisfaction, but has it really gone so far?”

Another pause.

“We know that you’re a busy man, but come to town hall meetings, Hakoda. The things you’d hear would surprise you,” the meek one said.

“Hakoda?” Izumi whispered. Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe. Katara’s father. Her grandfather. There was an excitement in her heart at this revelation but it was mixed with the dread of an eminent war. Her grandfather was in the other room, carrying on official business. But from the sounds of things, the nation was about to fall apart.

“Just think about it,” the gruff voice said.

She heard footfall. The men were about to leave the room. Izumi scrambled to look busy, deciding to walk back to the entrance of the hallway and retread. She was spotted on her way out of the hall.

“Princess Izumi?” It was the meek voice that spoke.

Izumi winced. She had forgotten how being a public figure made her easy to recognize. Her title sounded strange to her ears, having already become used being just “Izumi.” She turned around slowly, pivoting on her heel. She was greeted by a man of short stature with large round glasses that overpowered his small face.

“I knew it was you!” he said, bowing. “This may be strange, but I can recognize your figure anywhere! I’ve seen you at enough galas and official meetings to know exactly how you dress. And I must say, your style is impeccable!”

Izumi gave the man a sheepish smile as he spoke. Another man stepped out of the boardroom, presumably the gruff one. She acknowledged him with a nod, and he nodded back.

“…and I’m glad to see a Water Tribe hairstyle on you! Maybe it will catch on in the Fire Nation?” He chortled hoarsely at his own comment, the noise making Izumi shudder. “Excuse me, where are my manners? My name is Nanuk,” he said bowing again.

“Nanuk,” Izumi began. “It’s been a pleasure, really, but I must get going.”

“Of course, of course!” Nanuk said, bowing again. “I’m so sorry to have kept the Fire Princess waiting! I, too, have things to attend to!” He kept his bow as he walked backwards for a few paces before standing and walking out of the hallway.

Izumi sighed and brought a hand to her face. “Thought he’d never leave,” she mumbled.

Another set of footsteps came from out of the boardroom and Izumi was face to face with Hakoda. He seemed taller than she remembered.

“Hello,” he said in his warm and sonorous voice.

“Hello,” she answered timidly.

Now, they sat eating dried prunes on a bench outside of an ice-skating rink. The rink was fairly populated. Some couples skated hand-in-hand, some children played in groups off to the side, a few parents held their children’s hands as they moved together. Hakoda had offered Izumi a turn in the rink, but she didn’t know how to skate. So, they watched the others instead.

Izumi chewed on an especially tough prune. “My coronation is soon,” she said. “I don’t know when, but soon.”

“Are you scared?” Hakoda asked.

She pondered the question as she tossed another prune into her mouth. A young girl on the ice did a pirouette. “No, not really. I think I’m more upset that I don’t have a choice.” Izumi turned to her grandfather. “And it’s not just that I don’t _have_ a choice, the choice was already _made_ for me! Everything I’ve ever known is a lie.”

Hakoda raised an eyebrow. “Now, how could that be?”

Izumi’s eyes returned to the ice rink. “I’ve always loved history and politics. I thought it was just a natural inclination, something that came from listening to my father’s stories and reading books. But it was something that was planned. Every story, every course I took was just preparation to take a throne that I didn’t even know I’d inherit!”

Hakoda nodded and took a sea prune from the bag. “Doesn’t sound too different than how royalty generally works.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the only real difference between you and say, your father, is that you didn’t know that you were the next in line. There were still things he had to learn since he was a child in order to be the Fire Lord,” Hakoda explained.

Izumi considered his words. “I suppose. But he still had things he enjoyed outside of his duties. He was allowed that freedom because he knew where his responsibilities lay. But my identity and the one my father chose for me are the same. Who am I without my love of history? Without all my political training?”

Hakoda tore a prune in half, popping the half in his mouth. He absently watched the skaters. “A Water Tribe girl, I guess.”

Izumi leaned back on the bench, chewing on another sea prune. A boy fell on the ice and his parents helped him up. She pouted. “Maybe.”

Later, they took a tour of the town center and settled at a restaurant that served grilled fish and seaweed noodles. The restaurant had walls made of smoked wood and reeds. A design, Izumi noted, that was borrowed from the Fire Nation. Wood wasn’t abundant at the Poles; it was imported and only used for municipal buildings. But the restaurant owner was wealthy, having been in the business quite some time according to Hakoda, and could afford such a luxury. The foreign design made it a popular spot.

Hakoda ordered fileted fish and a bottle of rice wine for the table. Izumi ordered a bowl of seaweed noodles. She also ordered a side of stewed sea prunes as a dare from her grandfather. She figured that if she didn’t enjoy them, he would. But she was determined to like them.

The waiter came back with their plates, Hakoda’s rice wine, and two small cups.

“Thank you,” the two said at the same time.

The waiter bowed and left, moving on to the next table.

Hakoda took the wine bottle by the neck and opened it. He poured some into his own cup before moving to Izumi’s. She pushed his hand away. “You don’t drink?”

“No, I can’t,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“Come on, live a little!” Hakoda said, pushing her shoulder. “Unless you’re eating for two?”

Izumi gave her grandfather a telling smile but said nothing.

“No, you _have_ to drink now! Congratulations!” Hakoda poured into Izumi’s cup.

“What?!” Izumi tried to snatch her cup away but Hakoda held it fast.

“One drink won’t hurt the baby,” he said, handing Izumi the wine. “Here, we drink to good news!” He raised his cup, waiting for Izumi to toast.

Izumi looked down into her cup, watching the clear liquid reflect the light. She looked to her grandfather who looked back expectantly. She gave him a sheepish smile. “I guess I’ve got a lot to learn to be a Water Tribe girl.” She held her cup to his.

“That’s the spirit!” Hakoda patted her on the back. Clearing his throat, he began the toast.  
“To health and happiness for Izumi and her baby.”

“Here, here!” Izumi knocked her cup to his.

They drank. Izumi winced at the sharp burn of the alcohol. Hakoda poured himself another cup. “It’s okay. I’ll drink for the both of us,” he said and made Izumi laugh.

She picked her chopsticks from where it lay on the table and stirred her noodles. She watched Hakoda cut a piece of his fish. “I hear there’s some trouble within the Water Tribe,” she began carefully.

Hakoda sat back on his seat. “Where’d you hear that?”

Izumi clasped some noodles between her chopsticks, raised them into the air, then let them drop back into the bowl. “I was in the hallway while you were in your meeting.”

“Ah…” Hakoda had the intention of playing dumb. Caught, he approached the topic gently. “There’s been some tensions for a while now. This sort thing happens from time to time.”

She frowned. “They ‘happen’? How can they just ‘happen’?” Hakoda was too calm for her liking.

He sighed and stroked his beard. “We, as leaders, can’t help how our people feel about…certain things. In this case, it’s the Hundred Year War. Some feel the Northern Water Tribe should have done more to help us––and they’d be correct in thinking that way. But what are we to do now? Punish them?”

“Of course not,” Izumi answered resolutely.

Hakoda nodded. “I agree. But if the Southern Water Tribe doesn’t agree, we’ll have an uprising on our hands. If those in power don’t act, the people will.”

“…so, what will you do?”

Hakoda tore into his fish. “What I can. People are frustrated. They want to be heard. So, I’ll hear them. Attend some town council meetings and speak to Northern Water Tribe delegates.”

Izumi surveyed her grandfather’s face, as weather-beaten and crinkled as it was. She watched the hard set of his jaw and determined that there was no easy choice. “Who knew peace was so delicate?” She stirred her noodles again.

“Dear, that’s the first lesson you learn.” Hakoda captured a piece of fish in his chopsticks and ate it, smiling at Izumi as he chewed.

Izumi gave him a similar smile as she slurped her noodles.

Hakoda looked to the stewed sea prunes. “Now, are you gonna eat these, or am I?”

Izumi eyed the dish. After a moment’s pause, she slid it to Hakoda’s side of the table. “I don’t think I’m brave enough after all.”

Hakoda dipped his spoon into the stew with a satisfied grin. “That’s what I thought.”


	14. XIV.

My Jiro––

I’m writing to let you know that I’m fine, that I haven’t died on my way to meeting my mother, though I almost did. I’ll tell you that story when I meet you at the docks. I miss you terribly and I wish you were here with me. It’s a joy being around the people I’ve known all my life, feeling closer to them now than I ever have before. If you were here, enjoying it with me, I would die of happiness.

Along my way, I learned of a sister my parents had after me. She’s very brash, raised more Water Tribe than I, very good with her hands. She looks just like my mother. I met her at Sokka and Suki’s house on Kyoshi Island. From there, we journeyed together to the South Pole. It was a rough ride––we’re quite different––but I think we’ve worked it out. Maybe I can convince her to stay with us in the Fire Nation for a while?

It’s so strange meeting everyone again with this new knowledge. It’s like meeting them for the first time. Katara has always been lovely, but the loveliness that a mother has––something she’s always had––feels more obvious now than it was before. It’s definitely brought us closer, which is strange to say because we’ve always been close and have always loved each other.

I have more of a rapport with Hakoda than I did as a child. I barely have any memories of him from when I was younger. I usually remembered him as being serious and protective, but as my grandfather he’s…playful, as strange as it is to say. He took me penguin-seal sledding and polar bear-dog riding on my third day here. It was a lot! But he’s also a wealth of knowledge. He led the Southern Water Tribe during the war. An actual primary source––better than my old books.

I wasn’t planning on staying very long in the South Pole, but I have so much to learn. So much to learn about leadership, peace, and the Water Tribe itself. You might meet me at the docks a few pounds heavier––all books and scrolls!

I hope you’re keeping Godmother well. I’ll be home in a few short weeks.

Yours etc.,

Izumi

* * *

The idea of returning the Fire Nation became less daunting to Izumi as she wrote. The first week she’d spent with the Water Tribe was light and fun. She passed the time learning new things: how to weave a basket from fallen pine, how to clean and gut a fish, how to make a beadwork bracelet, how to sew Water Tribe embroidery onto a hide jacket. Beadwork and embroidery came easily to her due to years at the Royal Academy for Girls that emphasized the importance of fine motor skills. Basket weaving was complicated but after a few botched tries, her lines became neater and her baskets were able to stand up on their own. Fishing, fish-gutting, and all other fish related activities were the bane of Izumi’s existence at the time. Kya and Hakoda loved fishing together. Izumi tried, but waiting for a fish to bite was too boring and she was no good at spearfishing. She tried her hand at cleaning fish with Katara, but the smell was too strong, and the sight of fish innards made her squeamish. Near end of the week, she remembered her crown, which she had stopped wearing since nearly losing it in the sea while fishing. The crown brought back the memories of what awaited her if she were to go back to the Fire Nation: The Throne.

She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t even gut a fish and her beadwork was shoddy at best. How could she rule a country?

The thought occurred to Izumi that if she _didn’t_ return to the Fire Nation, she wouldn’t have to take the throne.

So, she didn’t.

In the time that she _wasn’t_ on a ship back to her home country, she was making a new home out of the South Pole. She frequented the barn that housed Koda and some other polar bear-dogs and fed them their whale steaks. The large animals were intimidating at first, but they took to Izumi easily enough and looked forward to her visits. Kya noticed Izumi’s fondness for the animals and offered her a polar bear-dog riding lesson. The first time was chaos, leaving Kya breathless from laughter and Izumi with tears down her cheeks from the arctic air hitting her face.

“That’s why riders usually wear goggles,” Kya managed between hiccups of laughter.

Izumi grumbled, smoothing down loose strands of hair. “It would’ve been nice to have known that.”

Kya was bent on telling the story to anyone who would listen. Katara was upset when she heard. To her, it wasn’t funny at all.

“All I’m hearing is an opportunity for Izumi to get seriously hurt,” she said while stirring a pot of stew. She turned to Izumi who was in the room with her, carrying filets of freshly cleaned fish for the stew. “You should be more careful. Riding so recklessly could make you lose the baby.”

Izumi rolled her eyes. Motherly doting would take some getting used to. She dropped the filets into the boiling stew one by one.

“Stay inside with me,” Katara said, eyes shining. “You should be resting and relaxing now.”

Izumi protested. “I’m not made of glass! I can still do things!”

But she gradually began to spend more and more of her days inside with little to no convincing from Katara. It was just more relaxing to be inside, by the hearth, shelling lion prawns with her mother. It was closer to what she was used to.

Somewhere during this time, Izumi realized that she was becoming a Water Tribe girl. A real Water Tribe girl. The first time she realized it was when she was in the igloo alone, beading a bracelet for her baby. Katara was gone for the week on a patrol of the Eastern End and Kya was out with friends. It was the first time she’d been alone since arriving at the South Pole.

The thought floated to mind in the form of Jiro. She’d been meaning to write to him, to tell him that she was safe, but there was so much to say. So much had happened and was still happening. Where would she begin? As she hooked three small orange beads onto her needle, she decided that she’d start with the baby. Their baby. She strung the beads onto the rest of the bracelet. Would she give birth in the Water Tribe? Would the baby be more Water Tribe than she? She hooked more beads, blue this time. Jiro wouldn’t like being left out his child’s life. After all, the baby would be seventy-five percent Fire Nation. The beads slid onto the bracelet one by one. But wasn’t she a Water Tribe girl now, anyways? Water Tribe girls don’t have a different home with a throne waiting for them.

To atone for her longer than planned absence, Izumi decided to explain everything that happened in a letter and send it, no matter how long it would take.

She figured that it wouldn’t be much of an update if she weren’t ready to tell her husband when he could expect her return. Izumi spread out a fresh sheet of parchment on the low table before her and placed a paper weight at either end. She broke off a small chunk of a sumi ink block and crushed it, adding water to turn the paste into a smooth ink. Dipping her calligraphy brush in the liquid, she drew “My Jiro” in the appropriate characters, drawing a long dash at the end. She stopped, hovering her brush above the page. Now what?

Before the ink could drip and ruin the parchment, she returned the brush into its water well, swishing it clean. When would she return? The travel to the South Pole had taken a week and she has stayed another week and a half so far. She felt so at home, she couldn’t possibly leave any sooner than another week.

“What’s this?”

Izumi turned to see her grandfather standing in the archway of the igloo’s main hall. She smiled and stood, approaching him for a hug. “Yeye!”

Hakoda received her embrace, wrapping his arms around her, careful not to squeeze too tightly. It took a few tries for them to find the right pet name. “Grandfather” was too formal for Hakoda’s liking, “Grandad” and “Grampa” were too formal for Izumi. “Yeye” was just right. Hakoda directed his attention back to the parchment that lay on the table. “What are you working on?”

“I’m trying to write to Jiro, let him know that I’m alright,” Izumi said, keeping her head to her grandfather’s chest. “But I don’t even know when I’ll be going back. That’s the most important thing, isn’t it?”

Hakoda unfurled from the embrace and approached the low table. “Well…” He sat on the floor and motioned for Izumi to do the same. She did, sitting down next to him. “I think the most important thing is letting him know you’re safe.”

Izumi nodded, taking the brush from its water well and wiping it on a white cloth. She dipped the horsehair bristles in the ink, swirling it and remixing the solids and water. When the ink was adequately mixed and her brush was full, she pressed the bristles against the inkwell, letting the excess in run off. She hovered her right hand over the paper and held her sleeve back with her left.

“You don’t have to write so soon!” Hakoda said, holding his hands up in surprise. “It was just a suggestion.”

Izumi talked while she drew the characters. “I need suggestions. Then I’ll know what to write.”

Hakoda watched her hand move deftly over the page, leaving neatly printed characters in its wake. Her writing was formal and used uncommon, almost ancient characters. He could barely make sense of what she was writing. “This is what they teach you in the Fire Nation?”

“This is what they teach you in the Royal Universities,” she said without lifting her eyes from the page. She quickly remembered that she was likely the only one on her mother’s side of the family that had a university education. Her words could have come across as an insult. This realization caused her penmanship to falter slightly at the end of a phrase. She rested her brush on the inkwell and turned to Hakoda. To her relief, he didn’t seem offended.

Izumi sat straighter, stretching the muscles in her back, before resting her hands in her lap. “I feel like I need to know when I’ll be going back. It’s as if there’s a clock on my back telling me I only have so much time.”

“The throne is waiting for _you_ , Izumi, not the other way around,” Hakoda said gently, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

Izumi was surprised by her father’s frankness. “I wasn’t even talking about the throne,” she deflected.

Hakoda smiled a knowing, grandfatherly smile. “Why else would you feel pressure to return? If this were some regular family visit, you’d have your fun and go back when you felt ready.”

Izumi frowned. She never liked being considered an open book. “I guess I’ll have to face it eventually.”

“You have to give yourself enough time,” her grandfather advised, “Only go when you feel called to leave.”

She offered him a half smile. “I certainly don’t feel called right now.”

Hakoda struck her back and pulled her into a hug. “Then stay a while longer!”

Izumi coughed at the force of her grandfather’s friendly pat on the back. He was the only person that didn’t treat her delicately because of her pregnancy. She didn’t know if she liked it completely. She laughed and brought a hand to the arm that enveloped her. “You all have to come with me. You all have to. Even if it’s just for a little while.”

“Why not? It’s been forever since I’ve traveled,” Hakoda said, kissing the top of his granddaughter’s head.

Izumi smiled, hoping Kya and Katara would agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness gracious! It's quickly coming to be a year since I first started this story. Don't think I've forgotten about it! It's been in the back of my mind forever but the words weren't flowing. I'll probably have to add a few more chapters instead of ending at the original 15. There's too much too wrap up!
> 
> Bear with me!


End file.
